208 Chapter V. 



to touch the white wall below with his hand leaves a black 

 five-fingered blot ; and the doors have a wealth of such 

 mementoes. The seats of the sofas must have their 

 wrong sides turned up, else they would bear lasting 

 marks of another part of the body ; and the tablecloth- 

 well, we fortunately do not possess such a thing. In 

 short, coal-shifting is as dirty and wretched an experience 

 as one can well imagine in these bright and pure sur- 

 roundings. One good thing is that there is plenty of 

 fresh water to wash with ; we can find it in every hollow 

 on the floes, so there is some hope of our being clean 

 again in time, and it is possible that this may be our last 

 coal-shifting. 



" Monday, September 25th. Frozen in faster and 

 faster! Beautiful still weather ; 13 degrees of frost last 

 night. Winter is coming now. Had a visit from a 

 bear, which was off again before anyone got a shot 

 at it." 



