Birthdays were celebrated by a little extra food--though toward the end a half a gill of rum for the celebrant, constituted the whole recognition of the day.

The story of Christmas Day is inexpressibly touching as told in the simple language of Greely's diary: "Our breakfast was a thin pea-soup, with seal blubber, and a small quantity of preserved potatoes.

Later two cans of cloudberries were served to each mess, and at half-past one o'clock Long and Frederick commenced cooking dinner, which consisted of a seal stew, containing seal blubber, preserved potatoes and bread, flavored with pickled onions; then came a kind of rice pudding, with raisins, seal blubber, and condensed milk.
Afterward we had chocolate, followed later by a kind of punch made of a gill of rum and a quarter of a lemon to each man....

Everybody was required to sing a song or tell a story, and pleasant conversation with the expression of kindly feelings, was kept up until midnight." [Illustration: AN ARCTIC HOUSE] But that comparative plenty and good cheer did not last long.

In a few weeks the unhappy men, or such as still clung to life, were living on a few shrimps, pieces of sealskin boots, lichens, and even more offensive food.