my large
overcoat. We found it to be more comfortable than you would think, and
altogether better than anything we had yet had to sleep on. But we came
near losing our fire by it, as the last embers were just dying out when
we awoke from this our first sleep in the hut.

"But this bed did not exactly suit our fancy, and, seeing the necessity
for some better kind of bedclothes, our wits were once more set to
working, in order to discover something with which to fasten together
the duck-skins that we had been saving and drying, and of which we had
now almost a hundred. We had spread them out upon the rocks, and dried
them in the sun; for we had seen that, if we could only find something
with which to sew them together, we might make all the clothing that we
wanted.

"The eider-duck skin is very warm, having, besides its thick coat of
feathers, a heavy underlayer of soft warm down, which, as I told you
before, the ducks pick off to line their nests with. The skins are also
very strong, as well as warm.

"Now, however, as at other times since we had been cast away, good
fortune came to us; and we had scarcely begun seriously to feel the need
of sewing materials before they were thrown in our way, as if
providentially. It happened thus:--

"In cutting the blubber from the dead narwhal, we had quite exposed the
strong sinews of the tail, without, however, for a moment imagining that
we were preparing the way to a most important and useful discovery.
After a while this sinew had become partially dried in the sun, and one
day, while busy with some one of our now quite numerous occupations, I
was much surprised to see the Dean running towards me from the beach,
and was still more surprised when I heard him crying out, 'I have it, I
have it!'

"It seemed to me that the Dean was always having something, and I was
more than ever curious to know what it was this time.

"He had been down to the beach, and, observing some of the dried sinew,
had begun to tear it to pieces; and in this way he found out that he
could make threads of it, and he immediately set off to tell me about
it. We at once went together down to the beach, and, cutting off all
that we could get of this strong sinew, we spread it upon the rocks,
that it might dry more thoroughly.

"In a few days the sun had completely dried and hardened a great
quantity of this stuff; and we found that, when we came to pick it to
pieces, we could make, if we chose, very fin