e, surrounded by a thick mass of ice made of the dripping
water from the bucket. I did not wonder when I saw the ice, for it was
43 degrees below zero that day, and sometimes it is colder still.

I went into the cow-house. It was, as usual, a very low building, lower
than most of those I had seen before. The two long windows admitted a
dim light. At the further end was the usual big iron pot seen in almost
every cow-house, for soaking the grass in boiling water, as the coarse
marsh grass is so hard to chew that it has to be thus prepared. The
daughter of the house, a girl about twenty years old, said to me, "I am
going to prepare a meal for the cows and the sheep."

The huge iron pot was filled with reindeer moss and grass and warm
water. "This food is for the cows and sheep," she said. "The horse is
fed on fine fragrant hay, gathered during the short summer; horses will
not eat the food we give to the cows and sheep; they are very
particular."

I was very much in need of a good wash and of a warm bath, for I had
only used snow to wash my hands and face for many days. As I looked at
the big iron pot I said to myself, "This pot will make a good wash-tub."

I went to the mistress of the house and asked her if I could take a warm
bath in the big iron pot. "Certainly," she replied. Then she called her
daughter, and both went to the cow-house. They cleaned the iron pot
thoroughly; then filled it about two thirds full with water from the
trough communicating with the well, which the old station master drew
for them. They lighted a fire under the pot, and cleaned the
surroundings, and laid down a reindeer skin for my feet, and a chair for
me to sit on.

When the water was warm, and the fire under it extinguished, the wife
said that my bath was ready.

How good I felt when I was in the big iron pot filled with warm water. I
gave grunts of satisfaction. I put my head under water and thought "How
good; how good the water feels."

Suddenly one of the family appeared, and before I had time to say "What
do you want?" had jumped into the water all dressed and got hold of one
of my legs and rubbed it with soap. Then came the turn of the other leg,
then the body, head and all. I was rubbed with a brush as hard as if I
had been a piece of wood that had no feelings, and as if my skin had
been the bark of a tree. Two or three times I screamed out, but my
attendant only laughed. After the rubbing I was switched with birch
twigs til