A favorite has no friends!"
However, there is a verse coming, to which he is listening attentively, and the very tears mount to his eyes with this unexpected mark of sympathy. For his sake I give it a place here:—
"Sad times there will be when the General slips his wind,
And is gathered to his fathers down below;
And is gone far away with his broken leg and all,
And is buried underneath the cold snow."
November 12th.
The temperature has gone down within 4° of zero, but there is still much slush and dampness. The snow lying next the ice is filled with water, a circumstance which it is difficult to explain, since the temperature has not, at any time, reached the freezing point, and the ice on which the snow rests is over three feet thick. There would appear to be a sort of an osmotic action taking place. Snow is now beginning to fall, and, as usual, it is very light and beautifully and regularly crystalized. The depth of snow which has fallen up to this time is 15¼ inches.
November 13th.
Worse and worse. The temperature has risen again, and the roof over the upper deck gives us once more a worse than tropic shower. The snow next the ice grows more slushy, and this I am more than ever puzzled to understand, since I have found to-day that the ice, two feet below the surface, has a temperature of 20°; at the surface it is 19°, and the snow in contact with it is 18°. The water is 29°.