hilly (for the sun had by this time gone behind the island, thus
leaving us in the shadow of the tall cliffs), I began to move about
again. I set to work collecting more of the eider-down, so that, when I
should be freed from my anxiety about the Dean, I might roll myself up
under this warm covering and get some sleep; for, although my mind was
much excited, yet I was growing sleepy, besides being chilly. I also
collected a number of eggs, and ate some more of them; and, using
several of the shells for cups, I brought some water, setting the cups
up carefully in the grass, knowing that when the Dean opened his eyes he
must needs be thirsty as well as hungry.

"All this being done, I fell to reflecting again, and, as was most
natural, my thoughts first ran upon what I should do to make a fire. I
had found--or at least I thought I had found--something that would burn,
as I have said before; but what should I do for _the first spark_? True,
with my jack-knife for a steel, and a flint-stone, of which there were
plenty, I could strike a spark without any difficulty; but what was
there to strike it into, so that it would catch and make a blaze? I knew
that in some countries people make a blaze by rubbing two pieces of dry
wood together; but this I could not do, as I had not a particle of wood.
In other countries, I knew, they have punk, into which they strike a
spark, and the spark will not go out until the punk is all burned up, so
that they have only to blow it on some inflammable substance until a
blaze comes; but where was I to get the punk from? I had also heard that
fire had been made with lenses of glass, which, being held up to the
sun, concentrate the rays and make a great heat, sufficient to set wood
and like combustible things on fire; but I had no lens. Of course, I
have no need to tell you that I had no matches, such as we have
now-a-days here.

"Thus the night wore on. I say _night_, but you must bear in mind, as I
told you before, that there was really no night at all,--the sun being
above the horizon all the time; and the only difference now in the
different periods of the day was, that when the sun was in the south it
shone upon us, while when it was at the north we were under the shadow
of the cliffs. The sun, you must observe, in the Arctic regions, circles
around during the summer, only a little way above the horizon, never
rising overhead, as it does here, but being always quite low down; and
hence it ne