48 WHALING 



with our lances we kill'd her also. Haling 'em both after this 

 into the boat, we row'd ashore, flay'd our sea-horses, cut 'em 

 in pieces to roast and eat 'em. The 19th of the same month 

 we saw other sea-horses sleeping also in like manner upon 

 several pieces of ice, but the weather being cold, they desir'd 

 not to sleep so much as before, and therefore could we kill but 

 one of them, of which we being right glad, we returned again 

 into our tent." 



With their store of venison and the meat of bear and walrus, 

 and with their scant supply of wood, they settled down for the 

 winter. They reduced their allowance of food to one meal a 

 day; they gave up meat altogether on Wednesdays and Fridays, 

 and ate only the whale fritters, as the waste scraps of boiled 

 blubber are called; they tended their fire with utmost care, 

 burying the coals deep in ashes at night to conserve fuel; and, 

 lest the supply of wood should fail them before spring if every 

 day they built up a fire large enough to cook by, they roasted 

 half a deer a day and packed the meat in hogsheads, until they 

 had cooked all except enough to give them a freshly roasted 

 quarter every Sunday and on Christmas. When the spring of 

 fresh water froze, they melted snow for their needs. The nights 

 lengthened into the one long winter night, and they fashioned a 

 lamp of sheet lead. October, November, December, and Janu- 

 ary passed, and their store of food shrank until they faced 

 starvation. Then, on the third of February, after a period of 

 cloudy weather, the sun shone again for the first time. 



''Aurora with her golden face smil'd once again upon us, at 

 her rising out of bed," Pelham writes; ''for now the glorious 

 sun with his glittering beams began to gild the highest tops of 

 the lofty mountains: the brightness of the sun, and the white- 

 ness of the snow, both together was such, as that it was able to 

 have reviv'd a dying spirit: but to make a new addition to our 

 new joy, we might perceive two bears (a she one with her cub) 

 now coming towards our tent: whereupon we straight arming 

 ourselves with our lances, issued out of our tent to await her 

 coming. She soon cast her greedy eyes upon us, and with full 

 hope of devouring us, she made the more haste unto us, but 



