120 FARTHEST NORTH 



I accordingly relinquished all idea of a tent of this 

 kind, and took with me one of about the same dimen- 

 sions, but without a floor, and of the same silk material 

 as the other. It took a little longer to put up, but the 

 difference was not great. The walls were kept down by 

 pegs, and when all was finished we would bank it care- 

 fully round with snow to exclude wind and draughts. 

 Then came the actual pitching of the tent, which was 

 accomplished by crawling in through the entrance and 

 poking it up wdth a " ski " staff, which also served as tent- 

 pole. It weighed a fraction over 3 pounds, including 16 

 pegs, lasted the whole journey through — that is to say, 

 until the autumn — and was always a cherished place of 

 refuge. 



The cooking apparatus we took with us had the 

 advantage of utilizing to the utmost the fuel consumed. 

 With it we were able, in a very short space of time, to 

 cook food and simultaneously melt an abundance of drink- 

 ing-water, so that both in the morning and in the evening 

 we were able to drink as much as we wished, and even a 

 surplus remained. The apparatus consisted of two boilers 

 and a vessel for melting snow or ice in, and was con- 

 structed in the following manner: Inside a ring-shaped 

 vessel was placed the boiler, while underneath this again 

 was the lamp. The entire combustion output was thus 

 forced to mount into the space between the boiler and the 

 ring-shaped vessel. Over this was a tight-fitting lid with 

 a hole in the middle, through which the hot air was 



