“Mr. Wilson has caught cold, and relapsed. Mr. Ohlsen, after a suspicious day, startles me by an attack of partial epilepsy; one of those strange, indescribable spells, fits, seizures, whatever name the jargon gives them, which indicate deep disturbance. I conceal his case as far as I can; but it adds to my heavy pack of troubles to anticipate the gloomy scenes of epileptic transport introduced into our one apartment.” * * * * * “_February 28, Wednesday._--February closes: thank God for the lapse of its twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming March not drag us further downward, we may hope for a successful close to this dreary drama. By the 10th of April we should have seal; and when they come, if we remain to welcome them, we can call ourselves saved. “But a fair review of our prospects tells me that I must look the lion in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining on us. I do my best to sustain the more desperate cases; but as fast as I partially build up one, another is stricken down. The disease is perhaps less malignant than it was, but it is more diffused throughout our party. Except William Morton, who is disabled by a frozen heel, not one of our eighteen is exempt. Of the six workers of our party, as I counted them a month ago, two are unable to do out-door work, and the remaining four divide the duties of the ship among them. Hans musters his remaining energies to conduct the hunt. Petersen is his disheartened, moping assistant. The other two, Bonsall and myself, have all the daily offices of household and hospital. We chop five large sacks of ice, cut six fathoms of eight-inch hawser into junks of a foot each (for fuel), serve out the meat when we have it, hack at the molasses, and hew out with crowbar and axe the pork and dried apples, pass up the foul slops and cleansings of our dormitory; and, in a word, cook, _scullionize_, and attend the sick. Added to this, for five nights running I have kept watch from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M., catching cat-naps as I could in the day without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note thermometers. “Such is the condition in which February leaves us, with forty-one days more ahead of just the same character in prospect as the twenty-eight which, thank God! are numbered now with the past. It is saddening to think how much those twenty-eight days have impaired our capacities of endurance. If Hans and myself can only hold on, we may work our way through. All rests upon destiny, or the Power which controls it.” * * * * *