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Updated: May 4, 2025
They live in large tents, which enclose sleeping-places or a kind of inner chambers, heated and lighted by an oil lamp. In these inner rooms the native women sit, with very little clothing on. In summer a fire is kept burning in the centre of the hut, and the smoke goes up through a hole in the roof. In winter there is no fire, and presumably the hut is closed against the outer air.
The rest of the party formed their sleeping-places of twigs and small boughs, which Walter declared made as good beds as any sailors need require. By the time these arrangements were finished supper was ready, and they sat down to their repast with thoroughly good appetites. "I am thankful that we came, though I was rather doubtful at first about making the journey," observed the mate.
It seemed to be a hard bed for a tired man, but we remembered that in olden times rocks and caves were selected for sleeping-places and stones often served for pillows.
Its length was about forty feet, its breadth eighteen, and its covering was moose deer leather, with apertures for the escape of the smoke from the fires which are placed at each end; a ledge of wood was placed on the ground on both sides the whole length of the tent, within which were the sleeping-places, arranged probably according to families; and the drums and other instruments of enchantment were piled up in the centre.
But mist and darkness, and a certain confusion of the senses caused by the excitement of an utterly strange environment, can account for a great deal. I pushed on quickly. The conviction that I had strayed from the route grew, nevertheless, for occasionally there was a great commotion of seagulls about me, as though I had disturbed them in their sleeping-places.
Of course if they had kept their heads, and shaken themselves together, they could soon have made an end of the matter; but that is just what they did not do, not having yet recovered from their start, and some of them having actually fled from their sleeping-places without their weapons.
They had also got ready our sleeping-places; so without loss of time we lay down to rest, intending to start again an hour before dawn, that we might, if possible, return before the close of the day. I was so anxious to be off in time that I awoke even sooner than was necessary.
The crew returned to the camp without the least hesitation. Some lay down in their sleeping-places, others wandered about. Hearne neither tried to join them nor to go near Martin Holt. Now that the sailors were reduced to idleness, there was nothing to do except to ponder on our critical situation, and invent some means of getting out of it.
He had been all through the American war under Grant, and spins some long yarns about the Northerners and the "cussed rebs." As there are twenty-seven bunks in our cabin, and only four passengers, there is of course plenty of room and to spare. But there is also a "lady" passenger at our end of the ship, and she has all the fifteen sleeping-places in her cabin to herself.
Calhoun set the apparatus with great exactitude. "This," he told Murgatroyd, "may be a good day's work. Now I think I can rest." Then, for a long while, there was no sound or movement in the Med Ship. The girl Maril may have slept, or maybe not. Calhoun lay relaxed in a chair which at the touch of a button became the most comfortable of sleeping-places.
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