SNOW HOUSES. 375 



Bellot whose good-humored aptitude to accommodate 

 himself to all varieties of circumstances was always 

 conspicuous undertook to squeeze in under the twelve 

 pairs of legs, a small space at one end being left clear 

 for his head. But the arrangement was riot propitious 

 to sleep ; and it was resolved to " make a night of it." 

 They had a candle, but no candlestick ; so each man 

 held the candle for a quarter of an hour, and then 

 passed it to his neighbor. Songs were sung, and there 

 was some hilarious merriment. But the candle went 

 out, and then there was a renewal of the abortive 

 attempts to sleep. These were accompanied with nods, 

 groans, and sighs, especially from poor Bellot, on 

 whom the weight of twenty-four heavy legs began to 

 tell with the effect of a hydraulic press. At length the 

 gray dawn warned them to rise and resume their 

 journey. 



Their discomforts had been such that they determined 

 in future to adopt the Esquimaux plan of building a 

 snow hut each night, in which to sleep. Kennedy's 

 description of these primitive dwellings is interesting : 

 "The process of constructing a snow-house goes on 

 something in this way, varied, of course, by circum- 

 stances of time, place, and materials. First, a number 

 of square blocks are cut out of any hard-drifted bank of 

 snow you can meet with, adapted for the purpose ; 

 which, when cut, have precisely the appearance of 

 blocks of salt sold in the donkey-carts in the streets of 

 London. The dimensions we generally selected v/ere 

 two feet in length by fourteen inches in height, and nine 

 inches in breadth. A layer of these blocks is laid on 

 the ground nearly in the form of a square ; and then 

 another layer on this, cut so as to incline slightly 

 inwards, and the corner blocks laid diagonally over 

 those underneath, so as to cut off the angles. Other 



