The Clay Which, From The Coldness Of The Weather, Required To
Be Tempered Before The Fire With Hot Water, Froze
As it was daubed on and
afterwards cracked in such a manner as to admit the wind from every
quarter
Yet, compared with the tents, our new habitation appeared
comfortable and, having filled our capacious clay-built chimney with
fagots, we spent a cheerful evening before the invigorating blaze. The
change was peculiarly beneficial to Dr. Richardson who, having in one of
his excursions incautiously laid down on the frozen side of a hill when
heated with walking, had caught a severe inflammatory sore throat which
became daily worse whilst we remained in the tents but began to mend soon
after he was enabled to confine himself to the more equable warmth of the
house. We took up our abode at first on the floor but our working party,
who had shown such skill as house carpenters, soon proved themselves to
be, with the same tools (the hatchet and crooked knife) excellent
cabinetmakers and daily added a table, chair, or bedstead to the comforts
of our establishment. The crooked knife generally made of an old file,
bent and tempered by heat, serves an Indian or Canadian voyager for
plane, chisel, and auger. With it the snowshoe and canoe-timbers are
fashioned, the deals of their sledges reduced to the requisite thinness
and polish, and their wooden bowls and spoons hollowed out. Indeed though
not quite so requisite for existence as the hatchet yet without its aid
there would be little comfort in these wilds.
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