TROUBLES OF EXPLORER 155 



still he persevered, and, turning on his back, had nearly gained the opposite 

 shore, when his legs also became powerless, and, to our infinite alarm, we 

 beheld him sink. We instantly hauled upon the line, and he came again on 

 the surface, and was gradually drawn ashore in an almost hfeless state. Being 

 rolled up in blankets, he was placed before a good fire of willows, and, for- 

 tunately, was just able to speak sufficiently to give some slight directions 

 respecting the manner of treating him. He recovered strength gradually, 

 and, through the blessing of God, was enabled, in the course of a few hours, 

 to converse, and by the evening was sufficiently recovered to remove into 

 the tent. We then regretted to learn that the skin of his whole left side was 

 deprived of feeling, in consequence of exposure to too great heat. He did 

 not perfectly recover the sensation of that side until the following summer. 

 I cannot describe what every one felt at beholding the skeleton which the 

 doctor's debilitated frame exhibited. When he stripped, the Canadians sim- 

 ultaneously exclaimed, 'Ah! que nous sommes maigres!' " 



After reading that, could one imagine a mosquito in the Arctic? Yet they 

 are a terrible pest there. Captain Hall describes a walk in July, in the follow- 

 ing language : 



"The sun was about five degrees high. Not a breath of air stirring, the 

 sun shining hot, and the mosquitoes desperately intent on getting all the 

 blood of the only white man of the country. I kept up a constant battling 

 with my seal-skin mittens directly before my face, now and then letting them 

 slap first on one and then on the other of my hands, which operations crushed 

 many a foe. It seemed to me at times as if I never would get back. Minutes 

 were like hours, and the distance of about two miles seemed more like half a 

 score. At length I got back to my home, both temperature and temper high. 

 I made quick work in throwing open the canvas roof of our stores, and, getting 

 to our medicine-chest, snatched a half-pint bottle of mosquito-proof oil, and with 

 a little of this besmeared every exposable part of my person. How glorious 

 and sudden was the change ! A thousand devils, each armed with lancet and 

 blood-pump, courageously battling my very face, departed at once in supreme 

 disgust at the confounded stink the coal-oil had dififused about me." 



Of the dreadful thirst of the Arctic, which some seek to allay by eating 

 snow, the diary of an explorer of the last century says : 



"The use of snow when persons are thirsty does not by any means allay 

 the insatiable desire for water; on the contrary, it appears to be increased 

 in proportion to the quantity used, and the frequency with which it is put into 



