Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/346

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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