THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 193 



bank of a large river. The glasses showed roughnesses on the 

 young ice, but from their distance I could not be sure that they 

 had actually been made by seals coming up to breathe. I don't 

 know whether it was a sign of the weakness or the strength of my 

 faith that when after an hour's watching I saw the head of a seal 

 come up through the ice about a mile away, I gave an involuntary 

 shout that brought my companions out of the tent. 



A seal a mile away in mush ice is as safe from the hunter as 

 if he were on the other side of the earth. Furthermore, we still 

 had food for two or three days at half rations and we were really 

 enjoying the experience of sailing close to the wind, although I 

 do not think the same can be said of the dogs, lacking our point of 

 view. All three of us might have taken our station beside the lead, 

 to wait the possible reappearance of the seal close enough for kill- 

 ing. I think Ole felt something like doing it, for he was always 

 a great one for "playing safe" and this was his first experience 

 of "living off the land." But Storkerson and I had acquired the 

 typical Indian or Eskimo attitude. Instead of using every effort 

 to get this first visible seal, we merely satisfied ourselves that he 

 actually was a seal and that we were now in seal country, and 

 then went back to the tent to feast our minds on anticipated seals 

 and to indulge ourselves at one meal with half our remaining and 

 for the last few days hoarded food. With about a day's food 

 actually on hand, we thanked our stars that the time of measuring 

 it by other standards than our appetites was over, and assured 

 each other that we would never again be so skeptical of the bounties 

 of the Arctic as to begin limiting our eating while we had a week's 

 store ahead. 



Those who have never undergone hunger expect death from it to 

 result in a short time. Going without food for a few days consti- 

 tutes in the imagination of some a great hardship — a curious belief 

 to persist and be so nearly universal when the few people who 

 have tried it for a considerable number of days tell us that little 

 suffering is involved, unless it be mental. The prisoner who waits 

 in a comfortable cell and has several good meals brought him each 

 day may undergo agonies if he has a sufficient imagination and 

 knows that the electric chair is only a few days off. So it may 

 have been on occasion with polar explorers, that when their food 

 was gradually giving out they suffered mental anguish because of 

 the death which in their mind's eye they saw coming upon them. 

 Had they been of optimistic temperament, expecting deliverance 

 in one form or another, their suffering as such would scarcely have 



