“December 12.—A grand incident in our great monotony of life! We had an occultation of Saturn at 2 A.M., and got a most satisfactory observation. The emersion was obtained with greater accuracy than could have been expected from the excessive atmospheric undulation of these low temperatures. My little Fraunhöfer sustained its reputation well. We can now fix our position without a cavil.
“December 15.—We have lost the last vestige of our mid-day twilight. We cannot see print, and hardly paper the fingers cannot be counted a foot from the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike, and, except a vague glimmer on the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this Arctic world of ours has a sun. In one week more we shall reach the midnight of the year.
Old Grim
“December 22.—There is an excitement in our little community that dispenses with reflections upon the solstitial night. ‘Old Grim’ is missing, and has been for more than a day. Since the lamented demise of Cerberus, my leading Newfoundlander, he has been patriarch of our scanty kennel.
“Old Grim was a ‘character’ such as peradventure may at some time be found among beings of a higher order and under a more temperate sky. A profound hypocrite and time-server, he so wriggled his adulatory tail as to secure every one’s good graces and nobody’s respect. All the spare morsels, the cast-off delicacies of the mess, passed through the winnowing jaws of ‘Old Grim,’—an illustration not so much of his eclecticism as his universality of taste. He was never known to refuse anything offered or approachable, and never known to be satisfied, however prolonged and abundant the bounty or the spoil.
“Grim was an ancient dog: his teeth indicated many winters; and his limbs, once splendid tractors for the sledge, were now covered with warts and ringbones. Somehow or other, when the dogs were harnessing for a journey, ‘Old Grim’ was sure not to be found; and upon one occasion, when he was detected hiding away in a cast-off barrel, he incontinently became lame. Strange to say, he has been lame ever since, except when the team is away without him.
“Cold disagrees with Grim; but by a system of patient watchings at the door of our deck-house, accompanied by a discriminating use of his tail, he became at last the one privileged intruder. My seal-skin coat has been his favourite bed for weeks together. Whatever love for an individual Grim expressed by his tail, he could never be induced to follow him on the ice after the cold darkness of the winter set in; yet the dear, good old sinner would wriggle after you to the very threshold of the gangway, and bid you good-bye with a deprecatory wag of the tail which disarmed resentment.
“His appearance was quite characteristic: his muzzle roofed like the old-fashioned gable of a Dutch garret-window; his forehead indicating the most meagre capacity of brains that could consist with his sanity as a dog; his eyes small, his mouth curtained by long black dewlaps, and his hide a mangy russet studded with chestnut-burrs; if he has gone indeed, we ‘ne’er shall look upon his like again.’ So much for old Grim!
“When yesterday’s party started to take soundings, I thought the exercise would benefit Grim, whose time-serving sojourn on our warm deck had begun to render him over-corpulent. A rope was fastened round him, for at such critical periods he was obstinate, and even ferocious; and, thus fastened to the sledge, he commenced his reluctant journey. Reaching a stopping-place after a while, he jerked upon his line, parted it a foot or two from its knot, and, dragging the remnant behind him, started off through the darkness in the direction of our brig. He has not been seen since.