THELONGNIGHT 163 



to sixty below and the ice-pack in the channel outside 

 groaning and complaining with the movement of the 

 tides. 



During the moonlit period of each month, some eight 

 or ten days, when the moon seems to circle round and 

 round the heavens, the younger members of the expedi- 

 tion were nearly always away on hunting trips; but 

 during the longer periods of utter blackness most of us 

 were on the ship together, as the winter hunting is done 

 only by moonlight. 



It must be understood that the arctic moon has its 

 regular phases, its only peculiarity being the course it 

 appears to travel in the sky. When the weather is 

 clear there is starlight, even in the dark period; but it 

 is a peculiar, cold, and spectral starlight, which, to 

 borrow the words of Milton, seems but to make the 

 "darkness visible." 



When the stars are hidden, which may be much of 

 the time, the darkness is so thick that it seems as if it 

 could almost be grasped with the hand, and in a driving 

 wind and snowstorm, if a man ventures to put his head 

 outside the cabin door, he seems to be hurled back by 

 invisible hands of demoniacal strength. 



During the early part of the winter the Eskimos lived 

 in the forward deck house of the ship. There was 

 always a fire in the galley stove, a fire in the Eskimo 

 quarters, and one in the crew's quarters; but though 

 I had a small cylindrical coal stove in my cabin, it was 

 not lighted throughout the winter. Leaving the for- 

 ward door of my cabin open into the galley a part 

 of the time, kept my cabin comfortably warm. Bart- 

 lett occasionally had a fire in his cabin, and the other 



