s curious to consider that,
in all these alterations, the object kept in view was _coolness_,
and this in houses formed of snow!

Some of them had caught a wolf in their trap; but we found that
nothing less than extreme want could have induced them to eat the
flesh of that which we had given them, as, now that they had other
food, they would not touch it. Only four wolves at this time
remained alive of the original pack, and these were constantly
prowling about near the ships or the village.

The month of February closed with the thermometer at -32 deg., and,
though the sun had now attained a meridian altitude of nearly
sixteen degrees, and enlivened us with his presence above the
horizon for ten hours in the day, no sensible effect had yet been
produced on the average temperature of the atmosphere. The
uniformly white surface of the snow, on which, at this season, the
sun's rays have to act, or, rather, leaving them nothing to act
upon, is much against the first efforts to produce a thaw; but our
former experience of the astonishing rapidity with which this
operation is carried on, when once the ground begins to be laid
bare, served in some measure to reconcile us to what appeared a
protraction of the cold of winter not to have been expected in our
present latitude.

CHAPTER VIII.

A Journey performed across Winter Island.--Sufferings of the Party
by Frost.--Departure of Some of the Esquimaux, and a separate
Village established on the Ice.--Various Meteorological
Phenomena.--Okotook and his Wife brought on board.--Anecdotes
relating to them.--Ships released from the Ice by sawing.

Our intercourse with the Esquimaux continued, and many occasions
occurred in which they displayed great good humour, and a degree
of archness for which we could have scarcely given them credit.

On the 12th Okotook came, according to an appointment previously
made, with a sledge and six dogs, to give me a ride to the huts,
bringing with him his son Sioutkuk, who, with ourselves, made up a
weight of near four hundred pounds upon the sledge. After being
upset twice, and stopping at least ten times, notwithstanding the
incessant bullying of Okotook, and, as it seemed to me, more
bodily labour on his part to steer us clear of accidents than if
he had walked the whole way, we at length arrived at the huts; a
distance of two miles, in five-and-twenty minutes. Of this
equipment and their usual modes of travelling, I shall have
occ