LAND AT LAST 4-9 



felt inclined for it again he would, perhaps, fish up some 

 pieces of burnt blubber out of the lamps, or eat what was 

 left of the blubber from which we had melted the lamp- 

 oil. We called these cakes, and thought them uncom- 

 monly nice, and we were always talking of how delicious 

 they would have been if we could have had a little sugar 

 on them. 



We still had some of the provisions we had brought 

 from the Frani, but these we decided not to use during 

 the winter. They were placed in a depot to be kept 

 until the sprirjg, when we should move on. The depot 

 was well loaded with stones to prevent the foxes from 

 running away with the bags. They were impudent 

 enough already, and took all the movable property they 

 could lay hold of. I discovered, for instance, on October 

 loth, that they had gone off with a quantity of odds and 

 ends I had left in another depot during the erection of 

 the hut; they had taken everything that they could possi- 

 bly carry with them, such as pieces of bamboo, steel wire, 

 harpoons and harpoon-lines, my collection of stones, moss- 

 es, etc., which were stored in small sail-cloth bas^s. Per- 

 haps the worst of all was that they had gone off with a 

 large ball of twine, which had been our hope and comfort 

 when thinking of the time when we should want to make 

 clothes, shoes, and sleeping-bags of bearskin for the 

 winter ; for we had reckoned on making thread out of 

 the twine. It was fortunate that they had not gone off 

 with the theodolite and our other instruments which 



