228 INGENIOUS COUNTER-IRRITANT. 



plained that such were commonly used by the 

 E^ussians when they suffered from entomo- 

 logical annoyances. 



The huts were all formed of logs dovetailed 

 into one another at the corners, and were 

 tolerably entire except the roofs, which had 

 been flat and covered with earth, but had now 

 mostly fallen in. The principal one, about 

 twenty-four feet square, had been used both as 

 sitting-room and dormitory; off this was a 

 small wing with a brick fire-place, evidently 

 used as a kitchen. Another hut was the 

 store-house, and a third — of all things in the 

 world — a Russian bath-house of a rude de- 

 scription, in which I suppose they had enjoyed 

 the national luxury of parboiling themselves, 

 and then rolling in the snow at a tempera- 

 ture of — 50^* or so. The roof of the main 

 hut had fallen in, and a little glacier, about 

 as large as a boat turned bottom up, had 

 formed in the middle of the floor. On a 

 gentle eminence, at a distance of two or three 

 hundred yards from the huts, they had built 

 up a sort of look-out house of loose stones, and 

 here we may conceive they passed alternately 

 many weary hours in watching the ice-laden 

 sea before them. 



