iHnrcit, 1865.] Renetved Apprehensions of Want. 155 



could scarcely see an object at arms-leng-th through the (b-ift. The 

 Innuits made no attempts to leave their huts, and Hall, though suc- 

 ceeding in getting his thermometers from the outside of his own, 

 could read them only under its lee. It cost him three severe expos- 

 ures to find them, but seizing one after another he worked himself 

 back with them on his hands and knees. 



The unsuccessful hunts were trying to all. Even a fox escaped 

 them, coming unharmed through a pack of the dogs w^hich did no 

 more than stare at it. "Had it been a polar bear or a musk-ox, they 

 w^ould have been all life, vigor, and teeth." In the absence of the men, 

 Too-koo-li-too gave chase, but her spear failed to reach the prey. 



The want of blubber for light and heat gave great uneasiness, 

 and provisions were again nearly exhausted, when, on the 14th, Nu-ker- 

 zhoo^s sister, Tuk-too, brought in on a sled from an abandoned igloo 

 a few old reindeer heads and legs, which had been cast aside out of 

 the reach of the dogs for just such a time of want. These were soon 

 made to give up every particle of their life-sustaining substance, 

 whether of putrid brains, the now bitter marrow, the hard fibers, 

 tougher sinews, or the few remaining patches of skin around the noses 

 and hoofs. To crack the reindeer-bones by an iron tool during the 

 walrus season was against Innuit law, yet Ebierbing ingeniously 

 escaped censure by holding the hatchet only, while Hall struck the 

 bones across its face. 



The times were dark enough. The journal says. 



How cheerless is our igloo! The moss wick of our lamp, which, when we 

 have our full supply of blubber, gives a continuity of flame of 2 feet G inches, is 

 narrowed down to a simple wick point, and makes the gloom more dismal tliau 

 total darkness. Long and cast down faces are now faintly seen that otherwise 



