On the 3rd
June, a month and a half from my start, I took an observation with the
theodolite, and found that I was not yet 400 miles from the Pole, in
latitude 84 deg. 50'. It was just as though some Will, some Will, was
obstructing and retarding me.
However, the intolerable cold was over, and soon my clothes no longer
hung stark on me like armour. Pools began to appear in the ice, and
presently, what was worse, my God, long lanes, across which, somehow, I
had to get the sledge. But about the same time all fear of starvation
passed away: for on the 6th June I came across another dead bear, on the
7th three, and thenceforth, in rapidly growing numbers, I met not bears
only, but fulmars, guillemots, snipes, Ross's gulls, little awks--all,
all, lying dead on the ice. And never anywhere a living thing, save me,
and the two remaining dogs.
If ever a poor man stood shocked before a mystery, it was I now. I had a
big fear on my heart.
On the 2nd July the ice began packing dangerously, and soon another
storm broke loose upon me from the S.
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