Another task that the white men can interest themselves in is the unloading of the sled and beating the snow and ice out of the fur bed-clothing. The Esquimaux do not use sleeping bags for themselves, but instead have a blanket which they spread over them, while under them are several skins, not only to keep the body away from the snow, but also to prevent the body from thawing the snow couch and thus making a hole that would soon wet the skins. While on the march the skins for the bed are usually spread over the top of the loaded sledge, and then the whole is securely lashed down with seal-skin thongs. It is the invariable custom to turn the fur-side of the skins up, because it is easy enough to beat the snow from the hair, while it might thaw and make the skin-side wet. You often, therefore, find that water has fallen upon the skin that makes your bed, and formed a great patch of ice, which has to be beaten off with a wooden club. Until experience has taught you it makes you shudder to think that soon your naked body is to rest upon the place where now you see that patch of ice. But continued pounding will remove every vestige of it without disturbing the fur, if the weather is sufficiently cold. Therefore exposure is the best treatment for bedding, though it certainly gives the skins a degree of cold that can scarcely be appreciated until experienced. It is astonishing, however, how soon the bed becomes warm from the heat of the body. For, perhaps, from five to ten minutes you may lie there and shiver, when gradually a genial warmth begins to pervade the whole body, the shiver subsides, and you are as comfortable, as far as cold is concerned, in bed in an igloo in the Arctic, as you would be in a civilized mansion in the temperate zone. The Esquimaux are not acquainted with the qualities of the magnetic needle, and, it is needless to say, do not travel by the compass. Like all savage tribes they have, however, methods for keeping their direction while making long voyages. These are usually made on the salt-water ice, and they follow the land; but when travelling over land, either in summer or winter, they can generally distinguish north from south, at least approximately. In summer the running vines point to the salt water, they say, which, in going around Hudson's Bay, would indicate the south. And then there are certain species of moss that are only found in the vicinity of salt water. In winter they notice the ridges of snow along the ice, or the land spots on the highlands, and can keep their course by them with surprising accuracy.