On board ship there was quite an extensive library, especially on Arctic and Antarctic topics, but as it was in the Commander's cabin it was not heavily patronized. In my own cabin I had Dickens' "Bleak House," Kipling's "Barrack Room Ballads," and the poems of Thomas Hood; also a copy of the Holy Bible, which had been given to me by a dear old lady in Brooklyn, N. Y. I also had Peary's books, "Northward Over the Great Ice," and his last work "Nearest the Pole." During the long dreary midnights of the Arctic winter, I spent many a pleasant hour with my books. I also took along with me a calendar for the years 1908 and 1909, for in the regions of noonday darkness and midnight daylight, a calendar is absolutely necessary.
But mostly I had rougher things than reading to do.
MAKING PEARY SLEDGES--HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC NIGHT--THE EXCITABLE DOGS AND THEIR HABITS
I have been busy making sledges, sledges of a different pattern from those used heretofore, and it is expected that they will answer better than the Esquimo type of open-work sledge, of the earlier expeditions. These sledges have been designed by Commander Peary and I have done the work.
The runners are longer, and are curved upwards at each end, so that they resemble the profile of a canoe, and are expected to rise over the inequalities of the ice much better than the old style. Lashed together with sealskin thongs, about twelve feet long, by two feet wide and seven inches high, the load can be spread along their entire length instead of being piled up, and a more even distribution of the weights is made. The Esquimos, used to their style of sledge, are of the opinion that the new style will prove too much for one man and an ordinary team to handle, but we have given both kinds a fair trial and it looks as if the new type has the old beaten by a good margin.
The hunting is not going along as successfully as is desired. The sun is sinking lower and lower, and the different hunting parties return with poor luck, bringing to the ship nothing in some cases, and in others only a few hares and some fish.
The Commander has told me that it is imperative that fresh meat be secured, and now that I have done all that it is positively necessary for me to do here at the ship, I am to take a couple of the Esquimo boys and try my luck for musk-oxen or reindeer, so to-morrow, early in the morning, it is off on the hunt.