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230

Sunday Dec. 31

Dog will eat dog in the arctic regions. I left on Friday.

[Returned to the brig at 5 1/2 P.M.
wonderfully fresh after a mingled walk
and drive of 80 miles.]

The dogs began to show signs of our
accursed tetanoid spasm at Ten Mile Ravine.
Before we reached the Basalt Camp
six out of eight were nearly useless.
The Therm indicated -44° and a
wind (No 4.) blew out of the gorge
from the glacier. Petersen wished to
return but was persuaded to
walk on with me to the huts at
Anaotoc, in the hope that a halt
would restore the animals. This we
did after a march of 30 miles. The
sinuosities of this Bay gave fearful
travel the broken ice clung to the rocks
and we could only advance by ascending
and descending to the ice foot
and the floe as the case required.
After eleven hours we made the Esquimaux hut
having made by sledge & foot travel 45 miles. [new paragraph] We found Esquimaux [?]
any trace of the Esquimaux having [lost?] [unclear]. We filled in the broken
[front?] with snow., housed the dogs
and unable to sleep on account of the
cold crawled in among them.
Next morning we broke down our
door and tried the dogs again. They
could hardly stand.

A gale now came in from
the S. W. obscuring the moon. We were forced
into the hut again, and after corking
up all openings with snow made a fire with
our Esquimaux Lamp and raised the
temperature to 30° below zero. Cooked coffee
and fed dogs on the dead meat after which both
Petersen and self our clothing having
frozen stiff, fell asleep through sheer
exhaustion. The wind outside blowing

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