THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 191 



half rations, too, for the same dread of summer weather which pre- 

 vented our stopping to hunt seals for ourselves prevented our hunt- 

 ing seals for them. 



I find from reading my diary that this period was more anxious 

 than I now realize. Our faith was really firm but, like some of the 

 believers of old„ we had an occasional hour of doubt. The theory 

 was mine, so I felt more free than either of my companions to 

 criticize it, and sometimes in the evening after a hard day's march 

 I wrote down that it was possible after all that Eskimos and whalers 

 and polar explorers were right and that food might prove scarce 

 on the Arctic ice. We were passing open lead after open lead 

 without the sight of a seal ; though I reminded myself that in some 

 of the best sealing waters of northern Alaska I had spent days and 

 often weeks watching beside open water without seeing a seal, and 

 then one morning 1 would come down to the water to find a dozen 

 swimming about within gunshot. I hoped and expected that it 

 would prove so again whenever we should be forced at last to stop 

 for hunting. 



Besides the advancing summer we had a second argument for 

 traveling fast towards Banks Island. This was that Eskimos, 

 whalers and explorers alike believed seals to be more common in 

 the vicinity of land than in the deep waters far offshore. If this 

 were true, the nearer we got to Banks Island the better the chances 

 would be of getting food when provisions ran out. 



Perhaps as a result of being on short rations, I find several 

 diary notes on the comparative excellence of various kinds of food. 

 We had with us pemmican, bacon, butter, peameal, rice, chocolate, 

 and malted milk. We found ourselves in agreement that four 

 pounds per day of peameal and butter or peameal and bacon for 

 the three of us was a more satisfactory diet than six pounds of 

 pemmican and biscuits. For one thing, the standard explorers' 

 breakfast of pemmican, biscuit and tea predisposes to thirst. There 

 is no difficulty in quenching thirst by eating snow once you have 

 rid yourself of the curious superstition that snow-eating is danger- 

 ous, but even at that it is preferable not to become thirsty. 



Unless it be religion, there is no field of human thought where 

 sentiment and prejudice take the place of sound knowledge and 

 logical thinking so completely as in dietetics. It is therefore not 

 surprising that actual experiments with diet, especially those insti- 

 tuted by stern necessity, should yield results contrary to conven- 

 tional expectations. I have never met any one inclined to believe 

 that he would find suitable and in every way satisfactory as a diet 



