The entrance to the tent had a porch attached to it, which was, of course, always carefully closed, and served to exclude the fine snow-drift that would otherwise have penetrated into the interior. The opposite side of the tent was fitted in a similar manner for the protection of the cook whilst engaged in preparing the meals. The duties of the cook during intensely cold weather entail hardships which it is scarcely possible to overrate. The poor cook is never in his sleeping bag until two or three hours after the rest of the party have been comfortably settled for the night, and he has always to rise in the morning a couple of hours before his comrades are disturbed, and this after a hard and fatiguing day's work. His cooking apparatus consists of a spirit lamp, a stearine lamp, a kettle, and a stew-pan. His fuel is either spirits of wine, or cocoa-nut stearine; and as the allowance of either is strictly limited, he has to be as economical as he possibly can. Should his fuel be consumed before the meal is cooked, he will get no more, and the pemmican will have to be eaten in a semi-frozen state. The odour and smoke emitted by the stearine can only be appreciated by those who have served their apprenticeship as cooks to an Arctic sledge party! Many experiments were tried during the winter to improve our cooking apparatus, but few were attended with success. Mr. White devoted a good deal of thought and time to this important matter. By introducing a cone into the kettle and stew-pan he succeeded in gaining a decided advantage in rapidity of cooking, but then his plan also had its disadvantages, a difficulty of cleaning and an encroachment on valuable space being the chief objections to it. By giving the bottom of the pans and kettles a little more concavity, we gained a slight advantage in point of time, and time in cooking also means an economy of fuel. The tent robes, coverlets, and sleeping bags were all made of duffel. The knapsacks were made of duck, and contained the only spare clothing that each man was allowed to take. The contents consisted of two pairs of blanket wrappers, one pair of wadmill hose, one pair of moccasins, a skull-cap for sleeping in, a woollen cap presented to each person in the expedition by H.I.M. the Empress Eugénie, two pairs of mitts, a flannel shirt, a pair of drawers, a comforter, a pair of snow-spectacles, a towel, and a piece of soap. The latter was rather a superfluous article until the thaw set in. The store bag contained the pemmican chopper and board, a snow-knife and saw, some spare lashings of hide for the sledge, matches, slow match, twine, and various other small and useful articles. The scale of provisions to be used whilst sledging was almost identical with that of preceding expeditions, the only difference being that we reduced the allowance of spirits by half and doubled the amount of tea and sugar. The following was the daily ration for each man:--