on the ship, and we celebrated with a special dinner,
field sports, raffles, prizes, and so on. It was not very cold that day,
only minus 23 deg..

In the morning we greeted each other with the "Merry Christmas" of
civilization. At breakfast we all had letters from home and Christmas
presents, which had been kept to be opened on that morning. MacMillan
was master of ceremonies and arranged the program of sports. At two
o'clock there were races on the ice-foot. A seventy-five-yard course was
laid out, and the ship's lanterns, about fifty of them, were arranged in
two parallel rows, twenty feet apart. These lanterns are similar to a
railway brakeman's lantern, only larger. It was a strange sight--that
illuminated race-course within seven and a half degrees of the earth's
end.

The first race was for Eskimo children, the second for Eskimo men, the
third for Eskimo matrons with babies in their hoods, the fourth for
unencumbered women. There were four entries for the matrons' race, and
no one could have guessed from watching them that it was a running race.
They came along four abreast, dressed in furs, their eyes rolling,
puffing like four excited walruses, the babies in their hoods gazing
with wide and half-bewildered eyes at the glittering lanterns. There was
no question of cruelty to children, as the mothers were not moving fast
enough to spill their babies. Then there were races for the ship's men
and the members of the expedition, and a tug of war between the men aft
and forward.

Nature herself participated in our Christmas celebrations by providing
an aurora of considerable brilliancy. While the races on the ice-foot
were in progress, the northern sky was filled with streamers and lances
of pale white light. These phenomena of the northern sky are not,
contrary to the common belief, especially frequent in these most
northerly latitudes. It is always a pity to destroy a pleasant popular
illusion; but I have seen auroras of a greater beauty in Maine than I
have ever seen beyond the Arctic Circle.

Between the races and the dinner hour, which was at four o'clock, I gave
a concert on the aeolian in my cabin, choosing the merriest music in the
rack. Then we separated to "dress for dinner." This ceremony consisted
in putting on clean flannel shirts and neckties. The doctor was even so
ambitious as to don a linen collar.

Percy, the steward, wore a chef's cap and a large white apron in honor
of the occasion, and he l