THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 57 



The first night on the ice was a new experience. We were shown 

 how to pitch the tent and set out the floor skins and sleeping-bags in the 

 Eskimo manner. According to correct methods, approved by Mr. Stef- 

 ansson, we took off all our clothes to sleep naked in our sleeping-bags 

 of reindeer skins. We did not question the advisability of this, apart 

 from the natural disinclination to undress in a temperature of 20° of 

 frost, for we had been accustomed normally to undress when going to 

 bed. We three novices slept in a tent together, while Mr. Stefansson 

 and the Eskimos occupied the other. He came in, tucked up our sleep- 

 ing hags, and gave us advice about keeping them folded about our shoul- 

 ders. This we scarcely heeded, thinking that we knew how it should be 

 done. But soon, even before we had finished comparing notes for the 

 day, we felt the cold air creeping round our ears and spreading down 

 our bags. A stroiig breeze had sprung up and it filtered through the 

 tent. We twisted and turned and complained of the cold and thought 

 we had proved one of the Commanders theories to be a fallacy. It was 

 all very well, we thought, for Eskimos to sleep naked if they wanted to, 

 but we were more tenderly reared and needed more protection. It was 

 only the dread of greater cold that prevented us from getting up, put- 

 ting on our clothes and going to bed fully dressed. We didn't for a 

 moment realize that it was our own incompetence that caused us the 

 discomfort. But after a few days' perseverance we learned to fold our 

 sleeping-bags around our necks and were generally comfortable, and we 

 eventually got to the point where we no longer wanted to get into our 

 bags with all our clothes on." 



The next day we got ashore, not indeed on the mainland, but on 

 Amauliktok, the westernmost of the Jones Islands, a chain that 

 lies about four miles off the coast. Inside this island chain we 

 found the ice young and rotten, so that crossing to the mainland 

 was not practicable and we camped for the night, using for cooking 

 and warmth our sheet-iron stove, and driftwood which in this 

 district is abundant. 



The name of this sandspit is typical in the sense that an Eskimo 

 place name is frequently found, when translated literally into 

 English, to be the equivalent not of a word but rather of a sen- 

 tence of ours. Thus amauliktok means "he killed a Pacific eider." 

 If the meaning had been "he killed a King eider" it would have 

 been "Kingaliktok" which (still more literally translated) means 

 "he killed one with a big nose." 



During the evening I decided it would be desirable to have some 

 additional things from the ship. I had given Captain Bartlett 

 directions that a few days after my leaving he was to send an- 

 other party ashore in the direction of Cape Halkett, and it now 



