DISCIPLINE. 
353 
once : there is nothing like emergency to speed, if not 
to instruct, the energies. 
It was my first definite resolve that, come what might, 
our organization and its routine of observances should 
be adhered to strictly. It is the experience of every 
man who has either combated difficulties himself or 
attempted to guide others through them, that the con¬ 
trolling law shall be systematic action. Nothing de¬ 
presses and demoralizes so much as a surrender of the 
approved and habitual forms of life. I resolved that 
every thing should go on as it had done. The arrange¬ 
ment of hours, the distribution and details of duty, the 
religious exercises, the ceremonials of the table, the 
fires, the lights, the watch, even the labors of the 
observatory and the notation of the tides and the 
sky,—nothing should be intermitted that had contri¬ 
buted to make up the day. 
My next was to practise on the lessons we had 
learned from the Esquimaux. I had studied them 
carefully, and determined that their form of habita¬ 
tions and their peculiarities of diet, without their 
unthrift and filth, were the safest and best to which 
the necessity of our circumstances invited us. 
My journal tells how these resolves were carried 
out:— 
“September G, Wednesday.—We are at it, all hands, 
sick and well, each man according to his measure, 
working at our winter’s home. We are none of us 
in condition to brave the frost, and our fuel is nearly 
Vol. I.—23 
