Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/254



THE NEW YEAR.—LOOKING FOR SONNTAG.—THE AURORA BOREALIS.—A REMARKABLE DISPLAY.—DEPTH OF SNOW.—STRANGE MILDNESS OF THE WEATHER.—THE OPEN SEA.—EVAPORATION AT LOW TEMPERATURES.—LOOKING FOR THE TWILIGHT.—MY PET FOX.

January 1st, 1861.

The Christmas holidays have passed quickly away, and the year of grace eighteen hundred and sixty-one was born amid great rejoicings. We have just "rung out the Old and in the New." As the clock showed the midnight hour, the bell was tolled, our swivel gun sent a blaze of fire from its little throat into the darkness, and some fire-works went fizzing and banging into the clear sky. The rockets and blue-lights gleamed over the snow with a weird and strange light; and the loud boom of the gun and the crash of the bell echoing and reëchoing through the neighboring gorges seemed like the voices of startled spirits of the solitude.

I now look anxiously for the return of Sonntag and Hans. Indeed, I have been prepared to see them at any time within these past seven days; for although I had little expectation that they would find Esquimaux at Sorfalik or Peteravik, yet their speedy return would not have surprised me. This is the tenth day of their absence, and they have had more than ample time to go even to the south side of Whale Sound and come back again. I am the more anxious now that the moon has set, and the difficulties of traveling