330 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv 



&c, like the White Knight in "Alice through the Looking- 

 Glass." These things, he told me, had originally been con- 

 tained in a blanket on his back, but they had strayed 

 during his temporary visits below ground. 



Summoning Trevor- Batty e, who arrived shivering with 

 cold, and with the paints frozen solid on his block, we 

 set up the tedious operation of boiling snow for supper. 

 About eleven p.m. we saw that it was hopeless to start that 

 night, for the wind was rising, and it was snowing heavily, so 

 we resigned ourselves to fate, and tried to sleep. Presently 

 the wind increased to a gale ; we had to turn out and lay 

 big stones round the floor of the tent to keep it from being 

 blown away bodily. 



We looked out at five a.m. ; it was still snowing, and 

 nothing was visible but a great whiteness. At ten we cooked 

 some coffee ; the wind, which had moderated somewhat, 

 again increased to a gale. Bottolfsen cheered us with Arctic 

 yarns, and we inspected the weather at intervals. At 12.30 

 we performed our ablutions and had some lunch. The 

 ablutions were scanty, owing to the absence of water, and 

 chiefly consisted of a rub with snow — what the French 

 would call nettoiage a sec. We took stock of our re- 

 maining provisions, not a difficult operation, as they con- 

 sisted of one tin of Irish stew, a ration cartridge, a few 

 biscuits, chocolate, and sticks of Emergency Food. The sug- 

 gestion was made that, as soon as it cleared a little, we 

 should start down for the ship ; but I was loath to abandon 

 the expedition as long as we had food, and stated my inten- 

 tion of sticking to it, and at least of climbing on to the 

 foot of the mountain and obtaining specimens of the rock. 

 Accordingly, at eight P.M. we put the remains of our provi- 

 sions in our pockets, wrapped ourselves up in everything we 

 possessed, and started for the peak, leaving the engineer 

 buried under the tent, from which we had abstracted our 



