Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/234



MIDWINTER.—THE NIGHT OF MONTHS.—BRILLIANCY OF THE MOONLIGHT.—MILD TEMPERATURES.—REMARKABLE WEATHER.—A SHOWER.—DEPTH OF SNOW.—SNOW CRYSTALS.—AN EPIDEMIC AMONG THE DOGS.—SYMPTOMS OF THE DISORDER.—GREAT MORTALITY.—ONLY ONE TEAM LEFT.—NEW PLANS.—SCHEMES FOR REACHING THE ESQUIMAUX IN WHALE SOUND.

The reader who has followed my diary since we entered Port Foulke will have noticed how gradually the daylight vanished, and with what slow and measured step the darkness came upon us. As November approached its close, the last glimmer of twilight disappeared. The stars shone at all hours with equal brilliancy. From a summer which had no night we had passed into a winter which had no day, through an autumn twilight. In this strange ordering of Nature there is something awe-inspiring and unreal.

We all knew from our school-boy days that, at the poles of the earth there is but one day and one night in the year; but, when brought face to face with the reality, it is hard to realize. And it is harder still to get used to. If the constant sunshine of the summer disturbed our life-long habits, the continual darkness of the winter did more. In the one case the imagination was excited by the ever-present light, inspiring action; in the other, a night of months threw a cloud over the intellect and dwarfed the energies.

To this prolonged darkness the moon gives some relief. From its rising to its setting it shines continally, circling around the horizon, never setting until