436 FARTHEST NORTH 



eel up tlic hut a little, rivulets ran down the wall into 

 our sleeping-bag. We took turns at being cook, and 

 Tuesday, when one ended his cooking- week and the 

 other began, afforded on that account the one variation 

 in our lives, and formed a boundary-mark by which we 

 divided out our time. We always reckoned up hovv^ 

 many cooking-weeks we had before we should break up 

 our camp in the spring. I had hoped to get so much 

 done this winter — work up my observations and notes, 

 and write some of the account of our journey; but very 

 little was clone. It was not onlv the poor, flickering 

 light of the oil -lamp which hindered me, nor yet the 

 uncomfortable position — either lying on one's back, or 

 sitting up and fidgeting about on the hard stones, while 

 the part of the body thus exposed to pressure ached ; 

 but altogether these surroundings did not predispose 

 one to work. The brain worked dully, and I never 

 felt inclined to write anything. Perhaps, too, this was 

 owing to the impossibility of keeping what you wrote 

 upon clean ; if you only took hold of a piece of paper 

 your fingers left a dark -brown, greasy mark, and if a 

 corner of your clothes brushed across it, a dark streak 

 appeared. Our journals of this period look dreadful. 

 They are " black books " in the literal sense of the term. 

 Ah ! how we longed for the time when we should 

 once more be able to write on clean white paper and 

 with black ink ! I often had difificulty in reading the 

 pencil notes I had written the day before, and now, in 



