CHRISTMAS 183 



standing the darkness. Of course he could not always 

 keep the trail. Sometimes he would be walking along 

 over snow as level as a floor, then suddenly the level 

 would drop ten or fifteen feet, and, walking right on in 

 the dark, he would land on the back of his head with 

 such force that he saw stars which do not appear in 

 any scientific celestial map. 



At one point in the journey they struck going so 

 rough that it was impossible to push ahead and drive 

 the dogs without light. They had no lantern, but Bart- 

 lett took a sugar tin, cut holes in the sides, and put 

 a candle in it. With this makeshift beacon he was able 

 to keep somewhere near the trail. But there was 

 considerable wind, and he declared that he used enough 

 matches in relighting the candle on that march to keep 

 an Eskimo family cheerful throughout a whole winter. 



The failure of these parties to obtain game was a 

 serious matter. In order to save food I had still further 

 to reduce the number of dogs. We overhauled them, 

 and fourteen of the poorest — they would not have 

 survived the winter — were killed and used as food 

 for the others. 



I am often asked how the wild herbivorous animals, 

 like the musk-ox and the reindeer, survive the winter 

 in that snow-covered land. By a strange paradox, the 

 wild winds that rage in that country help them in 

 their struggle for existence, for the wind sweeps the 

 dried grasses and scattered creeping willows bare of 

 snow over great stretches of land, and there the animals 

 can graze. 



December 22 marked the midnight of the "Great 

 Night," the sun from that day starting on the return 



