THE CABIN BY NIGHT. 
131 
My lamp reposed on the lid of the coffee-kettle, my 
instruments in the slusli-boiler, my feet in the ash- 
pan; and thus I drew the first coast-line of Grinnell 
Land. The stove, by close watching and niggard 
feeding, has burnt only sixty-five pounds in the last 
twenty-four hours. Of course, working by night I 
work without fire. In the daytime our little company 
take every man his share of duty as he is able. Poor 
Wilson, just able to stump about after his late attack 
of scurvy, helps to wash the dishes. Morton and 
Brooks sew at sledge-clothing, while Riley, McGary, 
and Ohlsen, our only really able-bodied men, cut the 
ice and firewood. 
“December 1, Friday.—I am writing at midnight. 
I have the watch from eight to two. It is day in 
the moonlight on deck, the thermometer getting up 
again to 36° below zero. As I come down to the 
cabin—for so we still call this little moss-lined igloe of 
ours—every one is asleep, snoring, gritting his teeth, 
or talking in his dreams. This is pathognomonic; 
it tells of Arctic winter and its companion scurvy. 
Tom Hickey, our good-humored, blundering cabin-boy, 
decorated since poor Schubert’s death with the dig¬ 
nities of cook, is in that little dirty cot on the star¬ 
board side; the rest are bedded in rows, Mr. Brooks 
and myself chock aft. Our bunks are close against the 
frozen moss wall, where we can take in the entire 
family at a glance. The apartment measures twenty 
feet by eighteen; its height six feet four inches at one 
place, but diversified elsewhere by beams crossing at 
