I have passed an hour of the evening very pleasantly with the officers in their cabin, have had my usual game of chess with Knorr, and now, having done with this journal for the day, I will coil myself up in my nest of furs and read in Marco Polo of those parts of the world where people live without an effort, know not the use of bear-skins, and die of fever. After all, one's lines might fall in less pleasant places than in the midst of an Arctic winter. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. INCREASING DARKNESS.--DAILY ROUTINE.--THE JOURNAL.--OUR HOME.--SUNDAY.--RETURN OF SONNTAG.--A BEAR-HUNT.--THE OPEN WATER.--ACCIDENT TO MR. KNORR.--A THAW.--"THE PORT FOULKE WEEKLY NEWS."--THE TIDE-REGISTER.--THE FIRE-HOLE.--HUNTING FOXES.--PETER. The steadily increasing darkness was driving us more and more within doors. We had now scarcely any light but that of the moon and stars. The hunt was not wholly abandoned, but so few were the hours wherein we could see that it had become unprofitable. The gloom of night had settled in the valleys and had crept up the craggy hills. The darkness being fairly upon us, we had now little other concern than to live through it and await the spring, and a return to active life and the performance of those duties for which our voyage had been undertaken. As a part of the history of the expedition, I will continue to give from my diary our course of life. November 5th. Our life has worked itself into a very systematic routine. Our habits during the sunlight were naturally somewhat irregular, but we have now subsided into absolute method. What a comfort it is to be relieved of responsibility! How kind it is of the clock to tell us what to do! The ship's bell follows it through the hours, and we count its shrill sounds and thereby know precisely how to act. The bell tells us when it is half-past seven in the morning, and then we "turn out." An hour later we breakfast, and at one o'clock we lunch. We dine at six, and at eleven we put out the lights and "turn in,"--that is, everybody but the writer of this journal and the "watch." After dinner I usually join the officers at a game of whist, or in my own cabin have a game of chess with Sonntag or Knorr. One day differs very little from another day. Radcliffe shows me the record of the weather when he has made it up, in the evening; and it is almost as monotonous as the form of its presentation. The daily report of ship's duties I have from McCormick, but that does not present any thing that is peculiarly enlivening. I make a note of what is passing, in this voluminous journal,--partly for use, partly from habit, and partly for occupation. The readings of the magnetometer and the barometers and thermometers, and the tide-register, and of the growth of the ice, and all such like useful knowledge, find a place on these pages; but novelties are rare, and