“embalmed beef” and everybody associated with it! [Illustration: _Belgica_ Mittens.] [Illustration: Samples of Darnings.] I must hasten to say that our food is not without variety, its quality is good, and it is perhaps all that could be desired under the circumstances; but men in the monotone of polar regions develop flighty longings. We have for breakfast cereals, such as corn meal, crushed oats, hominy, good, freshly-baked biscuits, oleomargarine, marmalade, and coffee. Our supply of sugar is low and the provision of milk is almost exhausted. It is the sugar and milk which are in greatest demand. For dinner we have soups of various kinds, canned meats, preserves, potatoes and macaroni, with a dessert of fruit pudding. Our supper consists of fish, cheese, and an occasional conglomerate mixture of macaroni, nulles, pemmican, and tinned meats. There is a sufficient variety to prevent a dislike for any one article. There are, however, a few things to which many have developed a sharp animosity. These are usually the articles with a neutral flavour. The things hated most violently are kydbolla and fiskabolla; both are Norwegian concoctions of doubtful stuffs. The kydbolla is said to be a mixture of ground beef and cream, and the fiskabolla is described as a compound of fish and cream. We are, however, ungrateful enough to doubt the usual truthfulness of our Norse friends. The colour and consistency of the meats and fish balls are such that no suggestion as to the composition is possible, and thus one idea after another is developed. Some prove by a plausible argument that they are the refuse of the packing-house, defibrinated, bleached, ground, and compressed. Others insist that useless dogs, cats, and what not, have been utilised. All traces by which one might discover the composition have been removed; even the odour of the fish has been destroyed in the fish balls.