my bag a sail needle and some twine, and then having lowered the tent to the ground while my brother held it, I stitched up the rent. When the tent was again raised our bedding was buried in snow, but the blankets being our only comfort, the drifts were shaken off, and in a half-perished condition we again crept beneath them.
Besides the discomforts occasioned by the storm at this camp, I suffered a serious experience of poisoning. Our cook, thinking to give my brother and me a treat, provided for our dinner a dish of fried liver. Perhaps because of its rank flavor, my brother partook sparingly and so partially escaped, but I ate of it freely and at once became fearfully ill. For a whole day I lay in the tent, retching and straining, though throwing off nothing but froth, until I thought I should have died. My brother urged me to take some brandy, a little of which still remained in a flask we had brought with us, but for some time I declined. Towards evening, however, finding that I would have to take something or give up the ghost, I yielded to his advice, and soon began to recover. I have since learned that polar bear's liver is considered to be poisonous, both by the Eskimos and by the north-*sea whalers.
While on the subject of bears, it may be of interest to relate here a rather exciting personal experience I once had, which took place several years before on the barren ice-bound shores of Hudson Straits.
We were a small detachment of explorers, travelling at the time in the little steam launch of a scientific expedition, and occupied in the geographical determination of a group of hitherto unknown islands. The
