64 
THE RECREANT DOGS. 
the ice driving to the northward before it; but we 
can rely upon our hawsers. All behind us is now 
solid pack. 
“August 15, Monday.—We are still fast, and, from 
the grinding of the ice against the southern cape, the 
wind is doubtlessly blowing a strong gale from the 
southward. Once, early this morning, the wind shifted 
by a momentary flaw, and came from the northward, 
throwing our brig with slack hawser upon the rocks. 
Though she bumped heavily she started nothing, till 
we got out a stem-line to a grounded iceberg. 
“August 16, Tuesday.—Fast still; the wind dying 
out and the ice outside closing steadily. And here, 
for all 1 can see, we must hang on for the winter, un¬ 
less Providence shall send a smart ice-shattering breeze, 
to open a road for us to the northward. 
“ More bother with these wretched dogs! worse than 
a street of Constantinople emptied upon our decks; 
the unruly, thieving, wild-beast pack! Not a bear’s 
paw, or an Esquimaux cranium, or basket of mosses, 
or any specimen whatever, can leave your hands for a 
moment without their making a rush at it, and, after 
a yelping scramble, swallowing it at a gulp. I have 
seen them attempt a whole feather bed; and here, this 
very morning, one of my Karsuk brutes has eaten up 
two entire birds’-nests which I had just before gathered 
from the rocks; feathers, filth, pebbles, and moss,—a 
peckful at the least. One was a perfect specimen of 
the nest of the tridactyl, the other of the big burgo¬ 
master. 
