THE LAST BOTTLES. 
37 
tracked nothing. Our sick have been on short commons 
for the last five days; and we have given up the traps 
for want of fresh meat to bait them with. The fiord 
looked frightfully desolate. Where once was a torrent 
fighting among ice and rocks, is now a tunnel of drifted 
snow. Mary Leiper River is a sinuous ravine, swept 
dry by the gales which issue from the hills, and its 
rocky bed patched with the frozen relics of its waters. 
“ I made a dish of freshened codfish-skin for Brooks 
and Wilson; they were hungry enough to relish it. 
Besides this, I had kept back six bottles of our Scotch 
ale to meet emergencies, and I am dealing these out 
to them by the wine-glass. It is too cold for brewing 
in our apartment: the water freezes two feet above the 
floor. I have given up my writing-table arrangements, 
and my unfortunate study-lamp is now fixed under a 
barrel to see if it cannot raise a fermenting tempera¬ 
ture. I shall turn brewer to-morrow if it succeeds.” 
FOX-TRAP. 
