IN WINTER QUARTERS 
61 
can bathe by paying twenty-five cents and they 
patronize it freely. We had several bath-tubs on 
the Karluk . 
On the twenty-seventh, too, we blew down the 
boiler, drew the water off, disconnected the engines 
and blew all the water out of the pipes. 
At eight o’clock on the evening of the twenty- 
eighth we were gathered in the saloon, some of us 
reading, some playing chess, others playing cards, 
when we were alarmed by a loud report coming 
from the direction of the bow. In an instant, with 
practically no interval, we heard another report, 
from the port quarter. The watchman came in 
and said there was a crack in the ice at the stem of 
the ship. I went out and with our lantern we 
could see what had happened. The ice had 
cracked at the bow and again about fifty yards 
away on the port quarter and the ice had opened 
up for about two feet running in a westerly direc¬ 
tion on the port bow. The dogs were separated 
from the ship by the crack. We made haste to get 
them on board, together with skin-boats, sledges 
and sounding-machines, for we were afraid the ice 
might break up all around the ship. I stayed up 
all night and had every one standing by for trouble, 
but again nothing happened, and next morning 
with a high wind blowing the drifting snow along 
the surface of the ice and a temperature of twenty- 
