I 
THE ADVANCE, OFF CHOKER'S BAT. 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
Three days after this entry the thermometer had 
fallen to 11° below zero. Our housings were not yet 
fixed, and we had no fires helow ; indeed, our position 
was so liable to momentary and violent change that 
it: would have been impracticable to put up stoves. 
Still, our lard-lamp in the cabin gave us a tempera- 
ture of +44° ; and so completely were our systems ac- 
commodated to the circumstances in which we were, 
that we should have been quite satisfied but for the 
condensed moisture that dripped from every thing 
about us. Our commander had allowed me to place 
canvas gutters around the hatchways, and from these 
we emptied every day several tin cans full of water, 
that would otherwise have been added to the slop on 
our cabin floor. But the state of things was, on the 
whole, exceedingly comfortless, and, to'those whom the 
scurvy had attacked, full of peril. I remember once, 
when the lard-lamp died out in the course of the night, 
the mercury sunk in the cabin to 16°. It was not till 
the 19th that we got up our stoves. 
The adaptation of the human system to varying 
temperatures struck me at this time with great force. 
I had passed the three winters before within the trop- 
ics — the last on the plains of Mexico — yet I could now 
