148 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
our Primus stove and make our tea, eat our biscuit 
and pemmican by candlelight, lie down and go to 
sleep. 
We were not ordinarily troubled with insomnia, 
but sometimes, like a peaceful community the night 
before the Fourth, we were kept awake in spite of 
ourselves. Between ten and eleven on the night 
of the twenty-fifth, for instance, the ice began to 
crack in the vicinity of our camp and from time to 
time we in our igloo.would feel severe shocks, as 
of an earthquake. Through the snow walls I could 
hear the Eskimo out on the ice. Kataktovick went 
out to see what was up and came back at once to 
tell me that a crack two or three feet wide had 
opened through the middle of Kerdrillo’s igloo, 
which was about five yards away from ours, and 
that they had nearly lost their little baby but for¬ 
tunately had got out before anything happened to 
them. 
The ice continued to crack about us all through 
the night. There was no crack in our igloo so I 
gave it to Keruk and her children for the rest of 
the night and we walked back and forth, waiting 
for daylight. It was not very dark for the stars 
were shining brilliantly. The temperature was 
about forty below zero. All around us the ice was 
breaking and at times we were on a floating island. 
As soon as daylight came I sent McKinlay and 
