see,
although we could ha' slept on long enough; our intariors couldn't, be
no manes, forgit their needcessities."

"We shall have to work a bit yet ere these necessities are attended to,
I fear," said Stanley. "Go, Francois, and one or two of you, and open
up the dog-kennel. The rest of you get all the shovels you can lay
hands on, and clear out the houses as fast as you can."

"Clear out de chimbleys fust, mes garcons," cried La Roche, looking up
from the tunnel. "Den ve vill git dejeuner ready toute suite."

"That will we, lad," said Bryan, shouldering a spade and proceeding
towards the chimney of the hall; while the rest of the party, breaking
up into several groups, set to work, with spades, shovels, and such
implements as were suitable, to cut passages through the square of the
fort towards the doors of the several buildings. As Massan had said, it
proved to be no light work. The north-west gale had launched the snow
upon the exposed buildings of Fort Chimo until the drift was fifteen or
sixteen feet deep, so that the mere cutting of passages was a matter of
considerable time and severe labour.

Meanwhile, Maximus awoke, and sought to raise himself from his lair at
the foot of the rock. But his first effort failed. The drift above him
was too heavy. Abandoning, therefore, the idea of freeing himself by
main force, he turned round on his side and began to scrape away the
snow that was directly above his head. The masses that accumulated in
the course of this process he forced down past his chest; and, as his
motions tended to compress and crush the drift around him in all
directions, he soon made room enough to work with ease. In ten minutes
he approached so near to the surface as to be able, with a powerful
effort, to burst it upwards, and step out of his strange dormitory into
the sunshine.

This method of spending the night has been resorted to more than once by
arctic travellers who had lost their way; and it is sad to think that
many who have perished might have saved their lives had they known that
burrowing could be practised with safety. The Esquimaux frequently
spend the night in this manner, but they prefer building a snow-house to
burrowing, if circumstances will permit.

Cutting a slice of seal-meat, and eating as he went, Maximus resumed his
journey, and soon afterwards arrived at the fort, where he found the men
busied in excavating their buried dwellings.

Here he stated the case o