Soon, while Bell was on watch near the stove, all the rest, stretched on their beds, slept quietly.
CHAPTER X.
THE PLEASURES OF WINTER-QUARTERS.
There is a gloomy monotony about life at the Pole. Man is wholly the sport of the changes of the weather, which alternates between intense cold and severe storms with savage relentlessness. The greater part of the time it is impossible to set foot out of doors; one is imprisoned in the hut of ice. Long months pass in this way, so that men lead the life of moles.
The next day the thermometer was several degrees lower, and the air was full of clouds of snow, which absorbed all the light of day. The doctor saw himself kept within doors, and he folded his arms; there was nothing to be done, except every hour to clear away the entrance-hall and to repolish the ice-walls which the heat within made damp; but the snow-house was very finely built, and the snow added to its resistance by augmenting the thickness of its walls.
The stores were equally secure. All the objects taken from the ship had been arranged in order in these "Docks of Merchandise," as the doctor called them. Now, although these stores were at a distance of only sixty feet from the house, it was yet on some days almost impossible to get to them; hence a certain quantity of provisions had always to be kept in the kitchen for daily needs.
They had been wise in unloading the Porpoise. The ship was exposed to a gentle, but persistent pressure, which was gradually crushing it; it was evident that nothing could be done with its fragments; still the doctor kept hoping to be able to build a launch out of them to return to England in, but the time for building it had not yet come.