In this extremity Middendorff adopted with heroic self-denial the best and only means for his own preservation and that of his comrades. If, by departing without loss of time, they were fortunate enough to reach the Samoïedes before these nomads had left the Taimur country for the south, he also might be rescued; if they found them very late, they at least might expect to save their lives; if the Samoïedes could not be found, then of course the whole party was doomed. Thus Middendorff resolved to separate at once from his comrades. A remnant of flesh extract, reserved for extreme cases, was divided into five equal portions; the naturalist’s dog, the faithful companion of all his previous journeys, was killed, though reduced to a mere skeleton, and his scanty flesh similarly distributed among the party. The blood and a soup made of the bones served for the parting repast. Thus of his own free-will, the winter having already set in, Middendorff, ill and exhausted, remained quite alone in the icy desert, behind a sheltering rock, in 75° N. lat., several hundred versts from all human dwellings, almost without fuel, and with a miserable supply of food. The three first days he was still able to move. He saw the lake cover itself completely with ice, and the last birds depart for the south. Then his strength utterly failed him, and for the next three days he was unable to stir. When he was again able to move, he felt an excessive thirst. He crawled to the lake, broke the ice, and the water refreshed him. But he was not yet free from disease, and this was fortunate, as want of appetite did not make him feel the necessity of food. Now followed a succession of terrible snow-storms, which completely imprisoned the solitary traveller, but at the same time afforded him a better shelter against the wind. “My companions,” he writes in a letter to a relation, “had now left me twelve days; human assistance could no longer be expected; I was convinced that I had only myself to rely upon, that I was doomed, and as good as numbered with, the dead. And yet my courage did not forsake me. Like our squirrels, I turned myself according to the changes of the wind. During the long sleepless nights fancy opened her domains, and I forgot even hunger and thirst. Then Boreas broke roaring out of the gullies as if he intended to sweep me away into the skies, and in a short time I was covered with a comfortable snow-mantle. Thus I lay three days, thinking of wretches who had been immured alive, and grown mad in their dreadful prison. An overwhelming fear of insanity befell me--it oppressed my heart--it became insupportable. In vain I attempted to cast it off--my weakened brain could grasp no other idea. And now suddenly--like a ray of light from heaven--the saving thought flashed upon me.