Darkness was now creeping in on them, and some remarks of Kane on the Arctic night are well worth quoting: “The intense beauty of the Arctic firmament can hardly be imagined. It looked close above our heads, with its stars magnified in glory, and the very planets twinkling so much as to baffle the observations of our astronomer. I am afraid to speak of some of these night-scenes. I have trodden the deck and the floes, when the life of earth seemed suspended, its movements, its sounds, its colouring, its companionships; and as I looked on the radiant hemisphere, circling above me as if rendering worship to the unseen Centre of light, I have ejaculated in humility of spirit, ‘Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?’ And then I have thought of the kindly world we had left, with its revolving sunshine and shadow; and the other stars that gladden it in their changes, and the hearts that warmed to us there; till I lost myself in memories of those who are not;—and they bore me back to the stars again.” By the beginning of December, scurvy was making sad inroads among the party. On the 2nd, Dr. Kane wrote: “Had to put Mr. McGary and Riley under active treatment for scurvy. Gums retracted, ankles swollen, and bad lumbago. Mr. Wilson’s case, a still worse one, has been brought under. Morton’s is a saddening one: I cannot afford to lose him. He is not only one of my most intelligent men, but he is daring, cool, and everyway trustworthy. His tendon Achilles has been completely perforated, and the surface of the heel-bone exposed. An operation in cold, darkness, and privation would probably bring on locked-jaw. Brooks grows discouraged: the poor fellow has scurvy in his stump, and his leg is drawn up by the contraction of the flexors at the knee-joint. This is the third case on board—the fourth if I include my own—of contracted tendons.” On the 7th of December, Bonsall and Petersen, two of the party that left Kane on 28th August, returned to the brig, and the remainder of the party arrived on the 12th. They had gone through a terrible trial. When they arrived at the brig, the thermometer was at −50°; they were covered with rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. They had journeyed 350 miles, and their last run from the bay near Etah, some 70 miles in a straight line, was through the hummocks at this appalling temperature. For more than two months they had lived on frozen seal and walrus-meat.