“February closes,” writes the heroic leader; “thank God 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 April 10 we should have seals; 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. 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 duty 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, serve out the meat when we have it, hack at the molasses, and hew out with crow-bar and axe the pork and dried apples; pass up the foul slop 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 such naps as I could in the day without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note thermometers.” The sufferings endured during the month of March are painfully interesting. Had Dr. Kane’s strength given way at this juncture, the whole party, deprived of their leading spirit, must have perished. He attributes his comparative immunity from scurvy to “rat-soup.” These rodents, surviving the bleak winter, had overrun the ship; but he was the only man who would eat them. Having no fuel, the only method of heating was the Eskimo method of lamps; the soot and fatty carbon blacking everything on which it rested. Heroic methods were made to keep in touch with the friendly natives, and Hans, on more than one occasion, saved the life of the party by securing fresh meat from them. To add to their troubles, two men attempted to desert at this critical juncture; only one succeeded—Godfrey—who joined the Eskimos. But strange as it may seem, this man returned with a supply of meat for his desperate comrades, while refusing to return on board ship. Fearing Godfrey might have done bodily harm to Hans, who was absent, Dr. Kane determined to follow the man and bring him back. To this end he made a journey along with a dog sledge of over eighty miles to the Eskimo settlement, and returned with his man. [Sidenote: _ABANDONMENT OF THE “ADVANCE”_]