END OF FEBRUARY. 
53 
basking in its brightness; but now, though the sun was 
but a single degree above the true horizon, it was so 
much elevated by refraction that the sheen stretched 
across the trough of the fiord like a flaming tongue. I 
could not or would not resist the influence. It was a 
Sunday act of worship: I started off at an even run,- 
and caught him as he rolled slowly along the horizon, 
and before he sank. I was again the first of my party 
to rejoice and meditate in sunshine. It is the third 
sun I have seen rise for a moment above the long 
night of an Arctic winter. 
“ February 26, Monday.—William Godfrey under¬ 
took to act as cook to day, but fainted before completing 
the experiment. The rest of us are little better; and 
now it looks as if we were to lose our best caterer, for 
Hans too shows signs of giving way to the scurvy. 
“I have been at work for an hour, cutting up the 
large Manilla hawser for fuel. I do not know that I 
have any very remarkable or valuable quality; but I 
do know that, however multiform may be my virtues, 
I am a singularly awkward hand in chopping up frozen 
cables. 
<£ February 28, Wednesday.—February closes: thank 
God for the lapse of its twenty-eight days! Should the 
thirty-one of the coming March not drag us further 
downward, we may hope for a successful close to this 
dreary drama. By the tenth of April we should have 
seal; and when they come, if we remain to welcome 
them, we can call ourselves saved. 
“ But a fair review of our prospects tells me that I 
