ould
rescue me: and I had the resolution to endure, while hope fed the flame.

I at once proceeded to inure myself to the life of the Esquimaux. I
habited myself in a suit of reindeer fur, and ate, with compulsory
appetite, the raw flesh and fat that form their principal food.
Acclimated by birth to the coldest region of the temperate zone, and
naturally of a hardy constitution, I found it not so difficult to endure
the rigors of the Arctic temperature as I had supposed.

I soon discovered the necessity of being an assistance to my new friends
in procuring food, as their hospitality depends largely upon the state
of their larder. A compass and a small trunk of instruments belonging to
the Captain had been either over-looked or rejected by the crew in their
flight. I secured the esteem of the Esquimaux by using the compass to
conduct a hunting party in the right direction when a sudden snow-storm
had obscured the landmarks by which they guide their course. I
cheerfully assumed a share of their hardships, for with these poor
children of the North life is a continual struggle with cold and
starvation. The long, rough journeys which we frequently took over ice
and ridges of snow in quest of animal food, I found monotonously
destitute of everything I had experienced in former traveling, except
fatigue. The wail of the winds, and the desolate landscape of ice and
snow, never varied. The coruscations of the Aurora Borealis sometimes
lighted up the dreary waste around us, and the myriad eyes of the
firmament shone out with a brighter lustre, as twilight shrank before
the gloom of the long Arctic night.

A description of the winter I spent with the Esquimaux can be of little
interest to the readers of this narrative. Language cannot convey to
those who have dwelt always in comfort the feeling of isolation, the
struggle with despair, that was constantly mine. We were often confined
to our ice huts for days while the blinding fury of the wind driven snow
without made the earth look like chaos. Sometimes I crept to the narrow
entrance and looked toward the South with a feeling of homesickness too
intense to describe. Away, over leagues of perilous travel, lay
everything that was dear or congenial; and how many dreary months,
perhaps years, must pass before I could obtain release from associations
more dreadful than solitude. It required all the courage I could command
to endure it.

The whale-fishing opens about the first week