t was a walrus. I got round so as to have a fair shot at its
side, and knocked it over sprawling on the ice. It had not strength
left to crawl off the ice, and Tom and I going up to it, despatched it
with our spears. We summoned the rest, and dragged it home on our big
sledge in triumph. We never ceased afterwards to joke Tom about his
ugly merman.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

We fancied that we had got everything comfortable for the winter, which
now, about the middle of October, began to set in with severe
earnestness, with heavy falls of snow and strong northerly winds. Our
house, on which we had so much prided ourselves, did not keep out the
cold blast as we expected; and though we covered ourselves up with
blankets, and sails, and skins, and kept up a constant fire in the
little stove we had brought from the cabin of the wreck, we were almost
perished with cold.

It was after a very severe night, and we were consulting what we should
do to keep warm, that we saw the sledges of our Esquimaux friends come
dashing along down the valley towards us. We were anxious to return the
hospitality they had shown us so we asked them into the house and
stirred up our fire, threw some more wood on it, and put on a pot of
lobscouse to regale them.

They could scarcely restrain their feelings of dismay when they saw this
waste of wood, to them so precious a thing, and by signs they entreated
us to desist; reminding us that they had cooked their meat in a very
different way. However, as the pot began to boil, there was no
necessity for putting more wood on.

They then tried to show us, by significant gestures, that they thought
we should be frozen to death in our house when the cold increased. To
do this, they shivered very much, then shut their eyes, and stretched
out their limbs till they were rigid, and looking round at the walls,
shook their heads, as much as to say, "This will never do." Then they
smiled, and explained that they could soon show us how to manage.

Having selected a level spot near our house, they beat the snow on it
down till it was quite hard, and then marked out a circle about twelve
feet in diameter. They then, from under a bank where the snow had
drifted thickly and was very hard, cut out a number of slabs like large
bricks, about two feet long and six inches thick. These they placed
edgeways on the spot marked out, leaving a space to the south-west for
the door. A second tier was laid on th