"When the Dean and I went down to the narwhal, we foresaw that our task would be even greater than we had supposed; for the horn which we were after was so firmly embedded in the skull and flesh that it promised to be a very serious work to get it out.
"First, we had to cut away the flesh and fat from the thick nose, until we exposed the skull, and then we had to break the horn loose by dropping heavy stones upon the socket. At length we were successful. But we had consumed almost the whole day about it, and we found ourselves very much fatigued; so we sat down upon the green grass, and rested and talked for a while, before going back to work upon the wall again. The horn was very heavy, but it answered our purpose; and we were soon digging up the moss with it, and then we carried the moss up to help make out the wall. This moss was very soft, being full of water; and it fitted with the stones as nicely as any mason's mortar, so that we had no more trouble in making the wall perfectly tight and solid. Nor did we have any trouble in building up a little fireplace and chimney along with it.
"We had some discussion as to what use there was in taking all this pains, since we had no fire to put in our fireplace. But then, if we should in the end find that we could make a fire, we saw that we would have to tear the wall down again if we did not build the fireplace and chimney up at once; therefore it was clearly better to take a little extra trouble now, and save it possibly in the end,--an observation that might apply to people who were never cast away in the cold, and did not have to build chimneys without knowing what use to put them to.
"We labored very hard, and were well satisfied with the progress we had made, when we found it necessary to knock off, and eat some more raw eggs, and sleep away our fatigue again.
"By this time we had grown tired enough of these raw eggs, and, in truth, were very sick of them. But we had nothing else to eat unless we should devour the duck which the Dean had caught; and this we could never, as we thought, bring ourselves to do, uncooked as it was.
"The Dean had by this time grown pretty strong again, but still he was so weak that I should not have allowed him to work had he not insisted upon it; so, when his turn came to go to sleep, I was glad to be at work by myself, and I much surprised the Dean, when he got up again, with what I had done.