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shows premonitories of scurvy. For three nights
I have kept watch from 8. P.M. to 6 A.M. and
have not for five days had my [pants] [clothes]
off. This sort of thing with out door work
at -40° and scanty catnaps below
[is not pleasant for the cascade of E.K.K.]
will soon make [my?] turn [will] come next.
John helped cook some towards evening.
[Petersen brings in one fox and thre e
Ptarmagan these birds are in fullest
winter feathering.] Hans saw a bear track
yesterday: today a fox & three ptarmigan.

We are now cutting up for fuel
the large manila hawser. I do not know
if I have any [single] remarkable or valuable quality, but I [so?]
know that I'm a [devellest bad] singularly awkward hand
at chopping up frozen cables.

Tuesday
Feb. 27.

[*omit*]
Placed Sonntag alongside of me last
night in hopes that he might be able to relieve
me, the clumsy Caliban. It was the first
time any of the return officers had been permitted
even the show of a "Watch". He went
off duty next morning "sick" and will not in
a hurry return to it. I lose nothing by
not restoring this man to his old place.
Constant inertness, practical, inefficiency, and
nearly constant aches and ails which he
has no fortitude to resist make him utterly
useless. Next to Goodfellow he is the
most helpless man on board. He behaved
badly at the hour of trial. I, never thinking
of my astronomer &c. [?] who had been on
terms of tolerably confidential intimacy and
thus aware of my views & intentions joining
the absentees, spoke to him very freely believing
him at least a reliable and steadfast
man. So far from it he requested payment
in full, and was among the most prominent
[end omit]