Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/255

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are so greatly multiplied. However, Sonntag had an undisguised wish to remain some time among the natives, to study their language and habits, and to join them in their hunting excursions; and when he left I felt quite sure that, if a reasonable pretext could be found for absenting himself so long, we would not see him until the January moon. There is no doubt that he will remain if he finds no interest of the expedition likely to suffer in consequence.

January 5th.

I have no longer a dog. The General was the last of them, and he died two days ago. Poor fellow! I had become more than ever attached to him lately, especially since he had quite recovered from the accident to his leg, and seemed likely to be useful with the sledge after a while. It seems strange to see the place so deserted and so quiet. In the early winter I never went out of the vessel on the ice without having the whole pack crowding around me, playing and crying in gladness at my coming; now their lifeless carcasses are strewn about the harbor, half buried in snow and ice, and, if not so fearful, they are at least hardly more sightly than were those other stiff and stark and twisted figures which the wandering poets found beneath the dark sky and "murky vapors" and frozen waters of the icy realm of Dis. There was a companionship in the dogs, which, apart from their usefulness, attached them to everybody, and in this particular we all feel alike the greatness of the loss.

But it is hard to get along without a pet of some kind, and since the General has gone I have got Jensen to catch me a fox, and the cunning little creature now sits coiled up in a tub of snow in one corner of