It is a pit eighteen feet long by eight wide and four deep. Over the top of said pit are placed the boat-oars, to support the sledge, which is laid across them; and over the sledge is thrown the boat's sail; and over the sail is thrown loose snow. In one end of the den thus formed there is a hole, through which we crawl in, and which is now filled up tightly with blocks of snow. Over the floor (if the term is admissible) there is spread a strip of India-rubber cloth; over this cloth a strip of buffalo-skins, which are all squared and sewed together; and over this again another just like it. When we want to sleep we draw ourselves underneath the upper one of these buffalo strips, and accommodate ourselves to the very moderate allowance of space assigned to each person as best we can. The post of honor is at the end furthest from the door; and, except the opposite end, this post of honor is the least desirable of all other places, for, somehow or other, the twelve sleepers below me manage to pull the "clothes" off and leave me jammed against the snow wall, with nothing on me but my traveling gear; for we go to bed without change of costume except our boots and stockings, which we tuck under our heads to help out a pillow, while what we call "reindeer sleeping stockings" take their place on the feet. And, furthermore, there is not much that I can say. This can hardly be called comfort. I have a vague remembrance of having slept more soundly than I have done these last four nights, and of having rested upon something more agreeable to the "quivering flesh" than this bed of snow, the exact sensations communicated by which are positively indescribable,—a sort of cross between a pine board and a St. Lawrence gridiron. And yet the people are busy and merry enough. Harris, one of my most energetic and ambitious men, is sewing a patch on his seal-skin pantaloons, stopping "a hole to keep the winds away;" Miller, another spirited and careful man, is closing up a rip in his Esquimau boot; and Carl, who has a fine tenor voice, has just finished a sailor's song, and is clearing his throat for "The Bold Soldier Boy." Several packs of cards are in requisition, and altogether we are rather a jolly party,—the veriest Mark Tapleys of travelers. We are leading a novel sort of life, and I can imagine that the time will come when I shall turn over the pages of this diary and be amused at the strangeness of the contrast of these events with the humdrum routine of ordinary existence. I have no doubt that I shall then wonder if this is not all set down in a dream, so singular will it appear; and yet so quickly do the human body and the human mind accommodate themselves to the changing circumstances of life that, in every thing we do, the events seem at the time always natural, and cause us no astonishment; still, when we review the past, we are continually amazed that we have undergone so many transformations, and can scarcely recognize ourselves in our chamelion dresses. If it should ever again be my luck to eat canvas-back at Delmonico's I shall no doubt very heartily despise the dried beef and potato hash which now constitute, with bread and coffee, my only fare; and yet no canvas-back was ever enjoyed as much as this same hash; and no coffee distilled through French percolator was ever so fine as the pint pot which is passed along to me, smoking hot, in the morning; and the best treasures of Périgord forest were never relished more than are the few little chips of ship's biscuit which the coffee washes down. In fact, our pleasures are but relative. They are never absolute; and happiness is quite probably, as Paley has wisely hinted, but a certain state of that "nervous net-work lining the whole region of the præcordia;" and, therefore, since this cold pencil only gives me pain in the fingers, while nothing disturbs the harmony of the præcordia, I do not know but that I am about as well off as I ever was in my life. True, I have not the means which I expected to have for the execution of my designs, and I am beset with difficulties and embarrassments; but if happiness lies in that quarter, pleasure lies in the future, for we willingly forget the present in the anticipations,—in the delights to come from the contests and struggles ahead; and it is well that this is so; for that which we spend most time in getting is often not worth the having. The Preacher tells us that "All is vanity;" and what says the Poet?—
"——pleasures are like poppies spread;
You seize the flower—its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-fall in the river—
A moment white, then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flits ere you can point the place."
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE STORM CONTINUES.—AT WORK.—AMONG THE HUMMOCKS.—DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.—THE SNOW-DRIFTS.—SLOW PROGRESS.—THE SMITH SOUND ICE.—FORMATION OF THE HUMMOCKS.—THE OLD ICE-FIELDS GROWTH OF ICE-FIELDS.—THICKNESS OF ICE.—THE PROSPECT.