96 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



traveling in the Arctic. However, I promptly fell 

 asleep and slept so soundly and well that I scarcely 

 realized I had lain down when stirring Eskimos ad- 

 vised me that it was time to be up, and I rose from 

 my sleeping-bag chilled through. My oil stove 

 lighted and the kettle filled with pieces of ice and 

 put over to melt for tea, I went out of the tent and 

 ran up and down for fifteen minutes to get my blood 

 circulating. In all my life I had never beheld such 

 a morning such a combination of dreary desolation 

 and beauty. 



The waning moon was very near to earth. A 

 multitude of stars shone from a deep-blue sky with 

 a brilliancy I had never before witnessed, and so close 

 I fancied I could almost reach them with my hand. 

 Even the horizon seemed but a step away. Frost 

 rime hung suspended in the air like a transparent 

 veil of spun silver, and the white expanse of snow 

 and ice glistened in the starlight like a world of 

 crystal. 



Bacon and tea were my breakfast, and then began 

 an unbroken march of fifteen hours to a miserable 

 camp under the cliffs of Cape Russell. North of 

 Cape Russell an open lead of water, varying in width 

 from fifty to one hundred yards, was encountered, 

 and for three miles off shore it was followed before 

 a suitable crossing-place was found, where new ice 

 had bridged it. The ice was very thin and bent under 

 the weight of dogs and komatiks as we hurried over 

 it, but fortunately did not break. 



Now rough ice, exceedingly difficult to negotiate, 



