THE NEW YEAR, iSg6 4.S5 



the lamp. With these soles we mended our " komager," 

 after the fashion of the Finns; we had plenty of "senne" 

 thread (sedge thread), and we managed to get our "ko- 

 magers" pretty well water-tight again. Thus, in spite of 

 everything, we were tolerably well off for clothes, though 

 it cannot be said that those we had were remarkable for 

 their cleanliness. To protect us against wind and rain 

 we had still our wind clothes, which we had patched and 

 stitched together as well as we could ; but it took a terri- 

 ble time, for the whole garments now consisted of scarcely 

 anything else but patches and seams, and when you had 

 sewed up a hole at one place they split at another the 

 next time you put them on. The sleeves were particular- 

 ly bad, and at last I tore both sleeves off my jacket, so 

 that I should not have the annoyance of seeing them per- 

 petually stripped away. 



It was very desirable, too, that we should have a toler- 

 ably light sleeping-bag. The one we had brought with 

 us no longer existed, as we had made clothes out of 

 the blankets ; so the only thing was to try and make as 

 light a bag as possible out of bearskin. By picking 

 out the thinnest skins we possessed, we managed to 

 make one not so much heavier than the reindeer-skin 

 bag which we had taken with us on leaving the Fram. 

 A greater difficulty w^as to procure a practicable tent. 

 The one we had had was out of the question. It had been 

 worn and torn to pieces on our five months' journey of 

 the vear before, and what was left of it the foxes had 



