50 
A DILEMMA. 
together year after year, the accumulation of discarded 
antlers is immense. They tell me at Holsteinberg, 
where more than four thousand reindeer-skins find a 
market annually, that on the favorite hunting-grounds 
these horns are found in vast piles. They bring little 
or nothing at Copenhagen, but I suppose would find a 
ready sale among the button-workers of England. 
“February 23, Friday.—Hans was out early this 
morning on the trail of the wounded deer. Rliina, the 
least barbarous of our sledge-dogs, assisted him. He 
was back by noon, with the joyful news, £ The tukkuk 
dead only two miles up big fiord!’ The cry found its 
way through the hatch, and came back in a broken 
huzza from the sick men. 
“ We are so badly off for strong arms that our rein¬ 
deer threatened to be as great an embarrassment to us 
as the auction drawn-elephant was to his lucky master. 
We had hard work with our dogs carrying him to the 
brig, and still harder, worn down as we were, in getting 
him over the ship’s side. But we succeeded, and were 
tumbling him down the hold, when we found ourselves 
in a dilemma like the Yicar of Wakefield with his 
family picture. It was impossible to drag the prize 
into our little moss-lined dormitory; the tossut was not 
half big enough to let him pass: and it was ecpially 
impossible to skin him anywhere else without freezing 
our fingers in the operation. It was a happy escape 
from the embarrassments of our hungry little council 
to determine that the animal might be carved before 
skinning as well as he could be afterward; and in a 
