THE COOKS IN DIFFICULTY.
- cents of mine how to keep the furnace-lamp from
being blown out; for we can use only lard for fuel, and the smoke is so great that we cannot have the cooking done inside. It seems to me that nothing takes the wits out of a man so quickly as the cold. The cooks had not sense enough left to inclose themselves in a snow wall, and I had to teach them how to keep up the proper proportion of lard and rope-yarns in the lamp to prevent the flame from smothering on the one hand, and from being whiffed out on the other. We were more than two hours in making a pot of coffee, and came in out of the pelting snow-drift with our furs all filled with it; and now it melts, and the clothing is getting damp, for we do not change our dress when we crawl in between our buffalo-skin sheets.
April 8th.
Could any thing be more aggravating? The gale holds on and keeps us close prisoners. My people could no more live in it than in a fiery furnace. I never saw any thing like it. Last night it fell warmer, and snowed, which gave us encouragement; but the wind blew afterward more fierce than ever, and human eye never beheld such sights. There was nowhere any thing else but flying snow. The sun's face was blinded, and the hills and coast were hidden completely out of sight. Once in a while we can see the ghost of an iceberg, but that is rarely. We tried to brave it yesterday, and again to-day, for I wanted to go down to Cape Hatherton to bring up our cargo there. So we commenced tearing down the hut to get at the sledge; but ten minutes convinced me that half the party would freeze outright if we undertook to face the storm, and I sent the flock again under
