318 A DAY AT FRAMHEIM 



of the walls there was clothing immense piles of skin- 

 clothing. Over this were spread blankets to protect it 

 from the rime that was formed on the roof and fell down. 

 Against the opposite wall was a stack of sledges, and 

 at the end, opposite the door, were piles of woollen 

 underclothing. Any outfitter in Christiania might 

 have envied this stock; here one saw Iceland jackets, 

 sweaters, underclothes of immense thickness and dimen- 

 sions, stockings, mits, etc. In the corner formed by 

 this wall and the one where the sledges stood was the 

 little hole by which we had entered. Beyond the sledges, 

 in the same wall, there was a door with a curtain in 

 front of it, and from within it came a strange humming. 

 I was much interested to know what this might be, but 

 had to hear first what these two had to say. 



' What do you think of the lashings now, Hanssen?" 

 ' Oh, they'll hold right enough ; at any rate, they'll 

 be better than they were before. Look here, how they've 

 pointed the ends!" 



I leaned forward to see what was wrong with the 

 sledge-lashings, and, I must say, what I saw surprised 

 me. Is such a thing possible? The pointing of a 

 lashing is a thing a sailor is very careful about. He 

 knows that if the end is badly pointed, it does not 

 matter how well the lashing is put on; therefore it is 

 an invariable rule that lashings must be pointed as 

 carefully as possible. When I looked at this one, what 

 do you think I saw? Why, the end of the lashing was 



