434 FARTHEST NORTH 



cold task of skinning now, in a wind, and with 39° (70.2° 

 Fahr.) of frost. 



There was not much variety in our life. It consisted 

 in cooking and eating breakfast in the morning. Then, 

 perhaps, came another nap, after which we would go out 

 to get a little exercise. Of this, however, we took no 

 more than was necessar)-, as our clothes, saturated as 

 they were with fat, and worn and torn in man}' places, 

 were not exactly adapted for remaining in the open air 

 in winter. Our wind clothes, which we should ha\e had 

 outside as a protection against the wind, were so worn 

 and torn that we could not use them; and we had so 

 little thread to patch them with that I did not think we 

 ought to use any of it until the spring, when we had to 

 prepare for our start. I had counted on being able to 

 make ourselves clothes of bearskins, but it took time to 

 cleanse them from all blubber and fat, and it was even a 

 slower business getting them dried. The only way to do 

 this was to spread them out under the roof of the hut; 

 but there was room for only one at a time. When at 

 last one was ready we had, first of all, to use it on our 

 bed, for we were lying on raw, greasy skins, which were 

 gradually rotting. When our bed had been put in order 

 with dried skins we had to think about making a sleep- 

 ing-bag, as, after a time, the blanket-bag that we had got 

 rather cold to sleep in. About Christmas-time, accord- 

 ingly, we at last managed to make ourselves a bearskin 

 bag. In this way all the skins we could prepare were 



