The winter month of December passed badly, with increasing darkness, severer cold, and despondent feelings. The poor natives, hearing so much desperate talk, unfortunately gained the notion that in the last extremity, which then seemed to be at hand, they would be sacrificed, and much uneasiness was felt by Tyson who strove to reassure them. Two wretchedly thin foxes, giving about three ounces of fresh meat to each man, was the only game up to Christmas, and nothing was encouraging except the steady drift to the south.
The captain felt it best to give a _starvation feast_ on Christmas, and so added to the usual ration the last remaining delicacies--a bit of frozen ham, a few spoonfuls of dried apples, and a swallow or two of seal blood saved in a frozen condition. The knowledge that the sun was returning, of southing being made by drift, and chances of game increasing were conditions of hope that made it an almost cheerful holiday.
Actually they were in desperate straits of hunger, for Tyson relates that in his igloo they ate greedily the refuse of the cooking-lamp oil. Tookoolito turned into food and cooked pieces of dried seal-skin which had been set aside for repairing their clothing. Of this Tyson says: "It was so very tough it made my jaws ache to chew it."
Day after day, in storm and in calm, faithful Ebierbing kept the field, always hoping for success on the morrow. After thirty-six days of unsuccess he killed a seal in the open sea. Shot through the brain, the seal floated until he could be reached by that wonderful skin boat of the Eskimos--the kayak. Then land shot up into view to the southwestward, and all felt that they were saved.
The new year of 1873 opened in dreary form, with no game, and a dinner of two mouldy biscuit with seal entrails and blubber served frozen, as their fuel was gone. The improvident seamen had not only burned one boat, but even the boards under their sleeping-robes. Compelled at last by dire need, they now made a lamp from an old can and began to cook Eskimo-fashion. Most of the time the seamen passed idly in their igloo, quarrelling and disputing. In their ill-clad, half-starved condition they suffered terribly from the severe and prolonged cold of January, during which the mercury was often frozen, with occasional temperatures seventy degrees below freezing. Hopes of relief were high when a bear was found near, and then came a feeling of despair when the animal escaped after injuring badly the two remaining dogs.