CHAPTER XXIV.
_Winter ends--The first insect--Preparations for departure--Narrow escape--Cutting out--Once more afloat--Ship on fire--Crew take to the boats._ Winter passed away, with its darkness and its frost, and, happily, with its sorrows; and summer--bright, glowing summer--came at last, to gladden the heart of man and beast in the Polar Regions.
We have purposely omitted to make mention of spring, for there is no such season, properly so called, within the Arctic Circle.

Winter usually terminates with a gushing thaw, and summer then begins with a blaze of fervent heat.

Not that the heat is really so intense as compared with that of southern climes, but the contrast is so great that it _seems_ as though the Torrid Zones had rushed towards the Pole.
About the beginning of June there were indications of the coming heat.
Fresh water began to trickle from the rocks, and streamlets commenced to run down the icebergs.

Soon everything became moist, and a marked change took place in the appearance of the ice-belt, owing to the pools that collected on it everywhere and overflowed.
Seals now became more numerous in the neighbourhood, and were frequently killed near the _atluks_, or holes, so that fresh meat was secured in abundance, and the scurvy received a decided check.

Reindeer, rabbits, and ptarmigan, too, began to frequent the bay, so that the larder was constantly full, and the mess-table presented a pleasing variety--rats being no longer the solitary dish of fresh meat at every meal.