the party were comparatively comfortable in the shelter of their tent.
Straw-hats would have been the proper style of head-dress, but they had
been omitted from the outfit, as was also another very important source
of comfort, mosquito nettings. It is in the summer, however, that the
necessity for the latter luxury is encountered.
While the sun's rays pour down with all their force upon the devoted
head of the traveller the reflection from the snow is almost as intense
and still more disagreeable, for there is no possible escape from it.
Not satisfied with producing its share of sunburn, it acts upon the
eyes in a manner that produces that terrible scourge of the Arctic
spring--snow-blindness. It is a curious fact that persons who are
near-sighted are generally exempt from the evils of snow-blindness,
while it appears to be more malignant with those who are far-sighted
in direct ratio to the superior quality of their vision. Lieutenant
Schwatka and his companion, the present writer, are both near-sighted,
and during the two seasons that they were exposed to the disease
neither were at any time affected by snow-blindness; while the other
members of the party, and especially the natives, who have most
powerful visual organs, were almost constantly martyrs to the disease
whenever exposed to its attacks.
It seems the only method of guarding against it is to wear what we
called snow-goggles all the time one is out of doors. The natives use
those of home manufacture--that is, a piece of wood with a notch to fit
over the bridge of the nose, and a narrow, horizontal slit opposite
each eye. This rude spectacle, called by them igearktoo, is made to fit
close to the eyes, and is held in place by strings passing behind and
over the top of the head. It serves to shelter the eyes from the direct
and reflected rays of the sun, but also interrupts the vision so much
that they habitually push it up on top of their heads, and run a risk
which almost invariably results to their disadvantage, yet their
goggles are so unsatisfactory that no amount of adverse experience is
sufficient to serve as a warning to them. The civilized visitors among
them wear goggles of various patterns and degrees of excellence. Some
are made of differently colored glass, from the various shades of
smoked glass to blue and green of varying degrees of opacity; some are
of glass surrounded with wire gauze; others of wire gauze without the
glass, and some are merely a strip of bunting hanging from the peak of
the cap. Of all the various kinds the general experience seems to be in
favor of the wire gauze without glass. They interfere very little with
the vision, and yet furnish a perfect protection for the eyes. Glass of
any pattern or shade subjects the wearer to constant annoyance by
fogging from the breath, which congeals very rapidly upon the surface
of the glass, and apparently always at the most inconvenient time, as
when the hunter is stalking a deer by crawling a long distance upon
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