Friday. Breakfast: Choice of cereal. Fish. Hamburger on starboard (our own) table. Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Pea soup. Fish. Cranberry pie. Bread and butter. Tea.
Saturday. Breakfast: Cereal. Meat stew. Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Steak and tomatoes. Bread and butter. Tea.
Sunday. Breakfast: Cereal. "Brooze" (Newfoundland hard biscuit, softened and boiled with salt codfish). Bread and butter. Coffee. Dinner: Salmon trout. Fruit. Chocolate.
Our table conversation was mainly with regard to our work. We would discuss the details of the last sledge trip, or talk over the plans for the next one. There was always something going on, and the minds of the men were so occupied that they did not have time to yield themselves to the traditional, maddening winter melancholy of the Arctic. Moreover, men of sanguine temperament had been selected, and much material in the rough had been carried along in order to keep everybody busy working it into shape for use.
On Sunday mornings I breakfasted in my cabin, thus leaving the men to themselves. On these occasions conversation was less technical and ranged from books to table manners, and sometimes Bartlett seized the opportunity to give his companions half-serious, half-humorous advice on the matter of table conduct, telling them that the time would come when they must return to civilization, and that they must not allow themselves to get into careless habits. Thus the academic and the practical elements of the party met on even ground.
I have never adopted rigorous rules for the members of my expeditions, because it is not necessary. There were regular hours for meals in the mess rooms. It was understood that lights should be out at midnight, but if any man wanted a light later, he could have it. These were our rules.
The Eskimos were allowed to eat when they pleased. They might sit up late at night, if they chose, but their work of making sledges and fur clothing had to proceed just the same the next day. There was only one rigid rule for them: that no loud noises, such as chopping dog meat or shouting, were to be made from ten o'clock at night until eight in the morning.
While living on the Roosevelt, in winter quarters, we abandoned much of the routine of ship life afloat. The only regular bells were those at ten and twelve at night, the first a signal for all loud noises to cease, the latter a signal for lights to be turned out. The only watches were those of the regular day and night watchmen.
With the exception of a few cases of grip, the health of the party was good during the whole period of our life at winter quarters. Grip in the Arctic, coincident with epidemics in Europe and America, is rather an interesting phenomenon. My first experience with it was in 1892, following one of the peculiar Greenland storms, similar to those in the Alps—a storm which evidently swept over the entire width of Greenland from the southeast, raising the temperature from the minus thirties to plus forty-one in twenty-four hours. Following that atmospheric disturbance every member of my party, and even some of the Eskimos, had a pronounced attack of grip. It was our opinion that the germs were brought to us by this storm, which was more than a local disturbance.
Aside from rheumatism and bronchial troubles, the Eskimos are fairly healthy; but the adults are subject to a peculiar nervous affection which they call piblokto—a form of hysteria. I have never known a child to have piblokto; but some one among the adult Eskimos would have an attack every day or two, and one day there were five cases. The immediate cause of this affection is hard to trace, though sometimes it seems to be the result of a brooding over absent or dead relatives, or a fear of the future. The manifestations of this disorder are somewhat startling.