THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 199 



The first relaxation was a day of rest deliberately taken to feed 

 up the dogs and to celebrate with feasts of fresh boiled seal meat 

 our vindicated theory. But the day deliberately taken was fol- 

 lowed by two days of idleness enforced. 



On the feast day the sun was bright and warm, and instead of 

 using our Burberry tent double as was our custom, we used only 

 the outer cover so as to allow the sun to penetrate and warm up 

 the interior. The Burberry in cold weather was perhaps not perfect 

 but certainly the best tent that we know anything about. It was 

 conical in shape but otherwise resembled an umbrella, in that five 

 bamboo sticks corresponding to umbrella ribs were fastened at 

 equal intervals to the tent cloth and joined at the top with hinges. 

 These bamboo ribs were inside the outer cover and from them was 

 suspended by strings an inner tent, also of Burberry cloth, giving 

 an air space of an inch and a half or two inches between the 

 cloths. This double tent when the temperature outdoors was at 

 zero would be at least twenty degrees warmer inside than if we 

 had used a single cover. As the difference in weight is only about 

 four pounds, carrying a double tent is well worth while, especially 

 as it has incidental advantages. Hoar frost will form on the inside 

 of a single tent if the weather is near zero, and this not only makes 

 the tent heavy but falls in the form of flakes upon the bedding at 

 night and tends to make it wet. With two covers, hoar frost will 

 not form on the inside one unless the temperature out of doors 

 is considerably below zero. If a little frost does form between 

 the tents this does little harm, for by beating the outside with a 

 stick ninety per cent, can be shaken out when the tent is pulled 

 down. Two further advantages are that it can be pitched by 

 two or three men in a fraction of a minute, almost as quickly as an 

 umbrella can be opened, and that once pitched the bamboo ribs 

 keep it from flapping as badly as other tents do, just as a ribbed 

 umbrella is kept from flapping. It will also stand any arctic gale 

 if properly pitched. The only time ours ever blew dov/n was in 

 the gale that separated us from Wilkins and Castel, and that was 

 because we had pitched it on a little patch of glare ice so that 

 it slid bodily before the wind. 



The day we rested we had used the single tent instead of the 

 double, and the bright sunshine penetrated the one cloth so easily 

 that during the day we became snowblind. This was something 

 no one of us had dreamed could happen. We had all had touches 

 at various times of snowblindness acquired out of doors, but the 

 thought never occurred to us that our eyes might be affected in 



