150 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



black clouds obscured the sky and the air was thick 

 with rime. 



The ground, frozen to a great density and depth, 

 was contracting, and now and again gave out loud 

 cannon-like reports. Returning from my walk I 

 visited the Eskimos, and while I was with Kulutin- 

 guah the earth cracked directly under his igloo, loos- 

 ening some of the rock of which it was built. 



It was very difficult in the continuous darkness to 

 keep account of time and separate the twenty-four 

 hours into what would normally be night and day 

 if the sun were with us. This was particularly the 

 case during long stormy or cloudy periods, such as 

 this we were now experiencing, when no stars were 

 visible; and so I later discovered myself reversed 

 sleeping in the "day" and up at night. 



The gale was raging when I awoke one evening to 

 find the fire had gone out while I slept, and the tem- 

 perature far below zero. After an effort with the 

 poor-drawing stove I succeeded in starting it again, 

 but in the meantime several bottles of lime juice, 

 grape juice and malt extract, which I had been re- 

 serving, had frozen solid; the bottles had burst and 

 the liquid was lost. It was practically impossible to 

 keep anything sacred from the penetrating frost that 

 somehow or other would find its way into every nook 

 and corner. The only wonder was that I had been 

 able to keep these things so long. 



While cleaning out the debris of broken bottles it 

 suddenly occurred to me that, by my reckoning, this 

 was December twenty-fourth, Christmas eve! The 



