I had no energy or ambition for anything.

Scarcely could I stop sleeping long enough to eat, or eating long enough to sleep.

My ravenous appetite was not the result of hunger or short rations, for we had all had plenty to eat on the return from the Pole.
It was merely because none of the ship's food seemed to have the satisfying effect of pemmican, and I could not seem to hold enough to satisfy my appetite.

However, I knew better than to gorge myself and compromised by eating not much at a time, but at frequent intervals.
Oddly enough, this time there was no swelling of the feet or ankles and in three or four days we all began to feel like ourselves.

Anyone who looks at the contrasted pictures of the Eskimos, taken before and after the sledge trip, will realize, perhaps, something of the physical strain of a journey to the Pole and back, and will read into the day-by-day narrative of our progress all the details of soul-racking labor and exhaustion which at the time we had been obliged stoically to consider as a part of the day's work, in order to win our goal.
One of the first things done after reaching the ship and bringing our sleep up to date was to reward the Eskimos who had served us so faithfully.