For the admission of light into the huts, a round hole is cut on one
side of the roof of each apartment, and a circular plate of ice, three
or four inches thick and two feet in diameter, let into it. The light is
soft and pleasant, like that transmitted through ground glass, and it is
quite sufficient for every purpose. When, after some time, these
edifices become surrounded by drift, it is only by the windows, as I
have before remarked, that they could be recognised as human
habitations. It may, perhaps, then be imagined how singular is their
external appearance at night, when they discover themselves only by a
circular disk of light transmitted through the windows from the lamps
within.
The next thing to be done is to raise a bank of snow, two and a half
feet high, all round the interior of each apartment, except on the side
next the door. This bank, which is neatly squared off, forms their beds
and fireplace, the former occupying the sides, and the latter the end
opposite the door. The passage left open up to the fireplace is between
three and four feet wide. The beds are arranged by first covering the
snow with a quantity of small stones, over which are laid their paddles,
tentpoles, and some blades of whalebone: above these they place a number
of little pieces of network, made of thin slips of whalebone, and lastly
a quantity of twigs of birch[008] and of the _andromeda tetragona_.
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