"CHAOS."
The first traces of returning light were observed on the 21st of January, when the southern horizon had a distinct orange tint. Towards the close of February the sun silvered the tall icebergs between the headlands of the bay: his rays reached the deck on the 28th, and perpetual day returned with the month of March. The men found their faces badly mottled by scurvy-spots, and they were nearly all disabled for active work. But six dogs remained out of forty-four. "No language can describe," says Kane, "the chaos at the base of the rock on which the storehouse had been built. Fragments of ice had been tossed into every possible confusion, rearing up in fantastic equilibrium, surging in long inclined planes, dipping into dark valleys, and piling in contorted hills." A sledge-party was sent out on the 19th to deposit a relief cargo of provisions; on the 31st, three of its members returned, swollen, haggard, and almost dumb. They had left four of their number in a tent, disabled and frozen. Dr. Kane at once started with a rescue of nine men, and, after an unbroken march of twenty-one hours, came in sight of a small American flag floating upon a hummock. They were received with an explosion of welcome. The return with the sledge laden with the weight of eleven hundred pounds was effected at the expense of tremendous efforts of energy and endurance.
While still nine miles from their half-way tent, they felt the peculiar lethargic sensation of extreme cold,—symptoms which Kane compares to the diffused paralysis of the electro-galvanic shock. Bonsall and Morton asked permission to go to sleep, at the same time denying that they were cold. Hans lay down under a drift, and in a few moments was stiff. An immediate halt was necessary. The tent was pitched, but no one had the strength to light a fire. They could neither eat nor drink. The whiskey froze at the men's feet. Kane gave orders to them to take four hours' rest and then follow him to the half-way tent, where he would have ready a fire and some thawed pemmican. He then pushed on with William Godfrey. They were both in a state of stupor, and kept themselves awake by a continued articulation of incoherent words. Kane describes these hours as the most wretched he ever went through. On arriving at the tent, they found that a bear had overturned it, tossing the pemmican into the snow. They crawled into their reindeer sleeping-bags and slept for three hours in a dreamy but intense slumber. On awaking, they melted snow-water and cooked some soup; and on the arrival of the rest of the party they all took the refreshment and pushed on towards the brig. Their strength soon failed them again, and they began to lose their self-control. Kane tried the experiment of a three minutes' sleep, and, finding that it refreshed him, timed the men in their turns. Doses of brandy, and, finally, the distant sight of the brig, revived and encouraged them. The last mile was accomplished by instinct, as none of the men remembered it afterwards: they staggered into the cabin delirious and muttering with agony.
WILD DOG TEAM.
KANE'S OPEN POLAR SEA.