Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/266

252 warmer than the rudeyrudely [sic] improvised shelter which for the last weeks had served to protect the Viborg's people. Well built of evenly cut and closely fitted blocks, the inner walls had become lined with a layer of ice as the heat from the stone lamp, suspended from the dome, had started to melt the snow. Above the burning lamp, a pot was held by a thong; the pot was boiling; it was full of seal meat. But even the hot odour of this fresh meat cooking could not remove from Geoff his first shock as he entered the igloo.

Although he had known, since hearing Eric's account, that the Eskimos themselves were in want and although he had himself seen the condition of Eskimos in Greenland, still the recent struggle to reach some Eskimo village—the constant counting upon the gaining of such a village as a sanctuary promising at least temporary security—had made him picture an Eskimo house as a more definite improvement upon the rudimental shelters which he had shared during the retreat from the Viborg. But except for the tight, well built walls of snow which made this igloo really warm and