t
carefully, with the lower part of the trousers inside, and then wound
the bands not too tight round my ankle, saying, "Now your feet will be
warm all day even if you spend all your time on skees. You see how
careful I have been in putting on your shoes. Dressed as you are you
can defy the cold. If you follow the advice I have given you, you will
never have cold feet no matter how long you drive or walk in the snow.
But take great care that neither shoes, nor stockings, nor grass be
damp. I think it will be well for you to let a Lapp or a Finn put your
shoes on before you start on a long journey--until you can do it
yourself quite well."

The "shoe grass" of which I have spoken grows in the Arctic regions in
pools in the summer. It is gathered in great quantity by the Laplanders
and Finlanders, who dry it and keep it carefully, for it is
indispensable in winter in their land of snow and cold. It has the
peculiarity of retaining heat and keeping the feet warm and absorbing
the moisture. I always travelled with a good stock of that grass,
twisted and knotted together in small bundles.

Then I looked at myself in the looking-glass, and for the first time saw
how I appeared in my new outfit, my Lapp costume. The frontispiece will
show you exactly how I was dressed (without a hood), for it is from a
photograph. Unfortunately, being a bachelor, I don't know how to take
care of things, and my costume, gloves, stockings, and mittens have been
eaten up by moths, and I have had to throw them away. But I appeared
before the American Geographical Society in New York dressed in this
suit, seated in my Lapp sleigh, with a stuffed reindeer harnessed to it,
and my bearskin over me.

To complete my outfit I added two large reindeer-skin bags, one larger,
so that the smaller one could be put inside it without much difficulty.
I was to sleep in these bags when obliged to rest out doors on the snow.
One bag was sufficient in ordinary cold weather--say 15 or 20 degrees
below zero; the other I would use when the thermometer ranged from 25 to
40 or 50 degrees below zero.

CHAPTER V

WHAT THE ARCTIC CIRCLE IS.--DESCRIPTION OF THE PHENOMENON OF THE LONG
NIGHT.--REASONS FOR ITS EXISTENCE.--THE ECLIPTIC AND THE
EQUINOXES.--LENGTH OF THE LONG NIGHT AT DIFFERENT PLACES.

Now I was ready to go further northward beyond the Arctic Circle, and
roam in "The Land of the Long Night."

The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line, ju