4. In the first week after the _Tegetthoff_ was abandoned, whenever Weyprecht encamped at the end of the day’s march, Haller, Zaninovich and I returned in the dog-sledge to the ship in order to replenish the stores we had consumed. The distance, which we had taken a week to pass with all our baggage, was done by the help of the dogs in an hour or two. In these different visits we did our utmost to fulfil the commissions of our companions. We rummaged the hold, though in many of the cases we opened nothing was to be seen but a dressed bear-skin. In one of these trips we filled a small cask with a concentrated decoction of all the tea which was left behind, and the rum we found was used to give it the proper strength. When we returned to the boat-parties before the morning start, this still lukewarm decoction of tea and rum met with great approbation, but the greatest was reserved for the remains of the condensed milk we brought with us, not merely because it was milk, but because to us it was the only milk in the world. Round the remains of the bears we had killed we always found flocks of sea-gulls screaming and quarrelling. Sometimes too we saw bears prowling round the ship at a distance, waiting till their time for plunder came. They seemed to wait for the moment when they should be able to take permanent possession of a fortress which had been so long hostile to their race. 5. But we had the benefit of their company through the earlier part of our journey. May 23, a bear was shot by Weyprecht, and forthwith the gulls, who always turned up whenever there was anything eatable to be got, consumed the remains with astonishing rapidity, even to the bones. On the 26th, when I was about two miles from the advanced parties, fetching something which had been left behind, I suddenly sighted a bear at about 100 paces distant, lying in the snow and apparently asleep. The dogs too got sight of him, and I had much trouble in keeping them in, till I overturned the sledge to act as a breast-work. As the bear rose and stood on his hind legs I fired, but though severely wounded, he managed to crawl away. The dogs, rushing off with the sledge behind them, assailed the wounded animal with a fury which would have been fatal to them, if the sledge had been checked by any obstacle. Torossy specially showed a complete ignorance of how matters stood, and was saved by Jubinal from the paws of his assailant. Whenever the bear came up to the sledge, Jubinal swung round with it, till I came up so close as to make sure of killing it with my last cartridge. On the 31st, Klotz shot a bear which came within ten paces of the boats; but notwithstanding this addition of fresh meat, the stores we brought in the dog-sledge from the ship maintained their charm. [Illustration: IN THE HARBOUR OF AULIS.]