482 FARTHEST NORTH 



before us, indeed, was not a very great one ; the thing 

 was simply to reach Spitzbergen and get on board the 

 sloop ; but it was long enough, after all, to make it neces- 

 sary for us to take certain measures of precaution. 



When we dug up the stores which we had buried at 

 the beginning of the winter, and opened the bags, we 

 found that there were some miserable remains of a 

 commissariat which had once, indeed, been good, but 

 was now for the most part mouldy and spoiled by the 

 damp of the previous autumn. Our flour — our precious 

 flour — had got mildewed, and had to be thrown away. 

 The chocolate had been dissolved by the damp, and 

 no longer existed; and the pemmican — well, it had a 

 strange appearance, and when we tasted it — ugh! It 

 too liad to be thrown away. There remained a certain 

 quantity of fish flour, some aleuronate flour, and some 

 damp half-moulded bread, which we carefully boiled in 

 train-oil, partly to dry it, as all damp was expelled by the 

 boiling oil, partly to render it more nutritious by impreg- 

 nating it with fat. We thought it tasted delightful, and 

 preserved it carefully for festal occasions and times when 

 all other food failed us. Had we been able to dry bear's 

 flesh we should have managed very well ; but the weather 

 was too raw and cold, and the strips of flesh we hung up 

 became only half dry. There was nothing for it but to 

 lay in a store of as much cut-up raw flesh and blubber as 

 we could carry with us. Then we filled the three tin 

 boxes that had held our petroleum with train-oil, which 



