February, 1867.1 



Severe Trials. 



15tli and IGtli, the party were gale-bound, but the time was not wholly 

 lost; their bedding and clothing were dried in difl'erent ways, tlie 

 clothing by wearing it in bed ; Hall's boots were taken in, one at a 

 time, and ke})t under his jacket, close to his person. A heavy coating 

 of frost showed itself between his two jackets, for the temperature had 

 been 80° below zero. 



The stock of provisions was now getting low, bringing fear of a 

 want of food before they could possibly renew their supplies ; nor was 

 it at all certain that they would find natives at Am-i-toke. If they did 

 not, they must hunt walrus out on the drifting ice, and thence push on 

 to Ig-loo-lik. Thus far, they had lived almost wholly on dog-food, 

 their only good provision having been four saddles of venison and 

 twenty pounds of sea-bread, with a little coifee, sugar, and tea ; raw 

 whale meat, skin, and blubber made their substantial working diet. 

 Nothing had been cooked but a little coffee or tea, and in this cook- 

 ing, in making drinking water, and in drying their clothing, the}' had 

 consumed two gallons of whale-oil; Hall's native lam}) was about lialf 



hall's lamp. 



the usual size. An entrance-way to their igloo, 30 feet in length, made 

 of three united oval igloos, had been built, that the dogs might be 

 protected from the storm ; for the less they were exposed, the less 

 hungry and poor would they become. They were sometimes fed 

 freely from the whale-beef, a chunk of a hundred and fifty pounds 



