7. Let us now turn to the persons who occupied this mess-room. Marola, the steward, lights the lamp, and kindles the fire, and awakens those who were not already awoke by the smoke from the stove, with the cry, “Signori, le sette e tre quarti, prego d’alzarsi;” and after a pause of a quarter of an hour, during which the sleepers seem carefully to deny their existence, he startles this silence of indifference by the second call: “Colazion’ in tavola.” Out of every berth now comes forth its occupant, each in picturesque costume; costumes teach us how superficial after all is civilization in man! 8. The day’s work begins. The watch, as ever, walks the deck, lest the ice should slip away from the world unobserved; in the mess-room meanwhile calculations or drawing or writing are in full operation. Our daily meals consist of a breakfast of cocoa, biscuit, and butter; of a dinner of soup, boiled beef, preserved vegetables, and _café noir_, and of tea in the evening, with hard biscuit, butter, cheese, and ham. I would recommend _potage_ instead of _tea_ for the evening meal to all future expeditions. Many of the articles of food must be thawed before the process of cooking begins, the greater part of the provisions being frozen as hard as iron. The tins with preserved meat stand for hours in boiling water, and the things for supper on the cabin stove, in order to be thawed. A plate of cheese that steams, butter as hard as a stone, which has thrown off the salt it contained in great lumps from the action of frost, a ham as hard as the never-thawed ground of the Tundra of Siberia, form an icy repast, specially if we use knives, which are so cold that they often break with the least exertion of force. I will here notice the sanitary importance—insisted on by Parry and Ross—of fresh bread, which the cook in an Arctic ship should be able to bake about twice a week. On board the _Tegetthoff_ we used at first Liebig’s “baking-powder,” but this from being kept too long gave such a disagreeable taste to the bread, that we gave it up and contented ourselves with a defective leaven. [Illustration: DIVINE SERVICE ON DECK.]