wept away like sheets of white flame. The
thermometer stood at 23 degrees below zero, a temperature that was mild
compared with what it usually had been of late, but the fierce wind
abstracted heat from everything exposed to it so rapidly that neither
man nor beast could face it for a moment.

Buzzby got a little bit of his chin frozen while he merely put his head
out at the door of the hut to see how the weather looked, and Davie
Summers had one of his fingers slightly frozen while in the act of
carrying in one of the muskets that had been left outside by mistake.

As for the Esquimaux, they recked not of the weather. Their snow-huts
were warm, and their mouths were full, so like wise men and women they
waited patiently within-doors till the storm should blow itself out.
The doings of these poor people were very curious. They ate
voraciously, and evidently preferred their meat raw. But when the
sailors showed disgust at this, they at once made a small fire of moss,
mingled with blubber, over which they half-cooked their food.

Their mode of procuring fire was curious. Two small stones were taken,
one a piece of white quartz, the other a piece of iron-stone, and struck
together smartly; the few sparks that flew out were thrown upon a kind
of white down, found on the willows, under which was placed a lump of
dried moss. It was usually a considerable time before they succeeded in
catching a spark, but once caught they had no difficulty in blowing it
into a flame.

They had also an ingenious contrivance for melting snow. This was a
flat stone, supported by two other stones, and inclined slightly at one
end; upon this flat stone a lump of snow was placed, and below it was
kindled a small fire of moss and blubber. When the stone became heated,
the snow melted and flowed down the incline into a small seal-skin cup
placed there to catch it.

During the continuance of the storm the sailors shared the food and
lodging of these Esquimaux. They were a fat, oily, hospitable, dirty
race, and vied with each other in showing kindness to those who had been
thus thrown into their society. As Davie Summers expressed it, "they
were regular trumps"; and, according to Buzzby's opinion, "they wos the
jolliest set o' human walrusses wot he had ever comed across in all his
travels, and he ought to know, for he had always kep' his weather-eye
open, he had, and wouldn't give in on that p'int, he wouldn't, to no man
livin'."