154 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 
tion of its dainties ? Had it a longing desire to quit 
so rigorous a region, hoping, perchance, to awaken in 
the spirit land of flies, where an ever-shining sun 
brings a paradise for them to sport in ? Or was it 
smitten by that human love of life which makes so 
many of us hang on earthly existence, with all its 
cares \ 
None of these could satisfy us. "We set it all 
down to the cold, and the lack of exciting incidents 
at that stage of our journey. 
The incident was not without its effect upon the 
men. They had done a kindness, and had received 
the reward, and yet the loss of their little protege was 
not without its gloom. Up in that strange, still cheerless 
realm of frost, so far from dear friends and home, how 
knew they but that, like the flies, they might one by 
one yield up life there, till the last man, without the 
consolation of sympathy, would leave this unburied 
corpse “ where friends come not.” 
We continued to wage successful sport with the 
seals all day, and at five in the following morning, at 
a council of war, we decided that, as our object was 
not so much to fill our ship with blubber as to get on 
with our sounding observations, which really was the 
object of our journey north, it was better to put an end 
to our sealing, as the time and weather was precious to 
