And now we were bathing in the atmosphere of other days. The friend of all hopeful associations had come back again to put a new glow into our hearts. He had returned after an absence of one hundred and twenty-six days to revive a slumbering world; and as I looked upon his face again, after this long interval, I did not wonder that there should be men to bow the knee and worship him and proclaim him "The eye of God." The parent of light and life everywhere, he is the same within these solitudes. The germ awaits him here as in the Orient; but there it rests only through the short hours of a summer night, while here it reposes for months under a sheet of snows. But after a while the bright sun will tear this sheet asunder, and will tumble it in gushing fountains to the sea, and will kiss the cold earth, and give it warmth and life; and the flowers will bud and bloom, and will turn their tiny faces smilingly and gratefully up to him, as he wanders over these ancient hills in the long summer. The very glaciers will weep tears of joy at his coming. The ice will loose its iron grip upon the waters, and will let the wild waves play in freedom. The reindeer will skip gleefully over the mountains to welcome his coming, and will look longingly to him for the green pastures. The sea-fowls, knowing that he will give them a resting-place for their feet on the rocky islands, will come to seek the moss-beds which he spreads for their nests; and the sparrows will come on his life-giving rays, and will sing their love songs through the endless day. CHAPTER XXII. SPRING TWILIGHT.--ARRIVAL OF ESQUIMAUX.--OBTAINING DOGS.--KALUTUNAH, TATTARAT, MYOUK, AMALATOK AND HIS SON.--AN ARCTIC HOSPITAL.--ESQUIMAU GRATITUDE. My time became now fully occupied with preparations for my journey northward. The sun appearing on the 18th, as recorded in the last chapter, rose completely above the horizon on the next day, was something higher the day following, and, continuing to ascend in steady progression, we had soon several hours of broad daylight before and after noon, although the sun did not for some time come in sight above the hills on the south side of the harbor. The long dreary night was passing away; we had with each succeeding day an increase of light, and the spring twilight was merging slowly into the continual sunshine of the summer, as we had before seen the autumn twilight pass into the continued darkness of the winter. The details of my preparations for traveling would have little interest to the reader, and I pass them over. It is proper, however, that I should recur to the situation in which I found myself, now that the traveling season had opened.