Setting out as soon as the daylight returned, the party came back by the same track which they had before pursued; but, greatly to their surprise, the tides and wind had, in the interval, carried off much of the ice in the neighborhood of the cape, so that they had before them the prospect of the very difficult task of crossing the glacier. This, not particularly embarrassing to an empty sledge, would have been exceedingly so to them. Fortunately, however, they succeeded with some risk in getting over a very treacherous place where the ice-foot, to which they were forced to adhere, was sloping, and one of the sledges had nearly gone over into the sea. Kalutunah saved it by a dexterous movement which could have been performed with safety only by one familiar, by long experience, with such dangers and expedients. [Sidenote: BURIAL OF SONNTAG.] The body of our late comrade was placed in the observatory, where a few weeks before his fine mind had been intent upon those pursuits which were the delight of his life; and on the little staff which surmounted the building the flag was raised at half-mast. The preparations for the funeral were conducted with fitting solemnity. A neat coffin was made under the supervision of Mr. McCormick, and the body having been placed therein with every degree of care, it was, on the second day after the return of Mr. Dodge, brought outside and covered with the flag, and then, followed by the entire ship's company, in solemn procession, it was borne by four of the sorrowing messmates of the deceased to the grave which had, with much difficulty, been dug in the frozen terrace. As it lay in its last cold resting-place, I read over the body the burial-service, and the grave was then closed. Above it we afterward built, with stones, a neatly shaped mound, and marked the head with a chiseled slab, bearing this inscription:-- [Illustration: | ————+———— | | | AUGUST SONNTAG. Died December, 1860, AGED 28 YEARS. ] [Sidenote: SONNTAG'S TOMB.] And here in the drear solitude of the Arctic desert our comrade sleeps the sleep that knows no waking in this troubled world,--where no loving hands can ever come to strew his grave with flowers, nor eyes grow dim with sorrowing; but the gentle stars, which in life he loved so well, will keep over him eternal vigil, and the winds will wail over him, and Nature, his mistress, will drop upon his tomb her frozen tears forevermore. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXIV.