Ne, we went back to the cooking utensils, which you may be sure we were very much in need of. Out of a good large block of soapstone, by careful digging with the knife, we soon made quite a good-sized pot, which was found to answer perfectly. We could now change our diet a little,--at least, I should say, the manner of cooking it; for while we could before only fry our ducks and eggs on flat stones, when we got the pot we could boil them. This gave us great pleasure, as we were getting very tired of having but one style of food; still I cannot say that there was so very much occasion for being over-glad, as at best it was only ducks and eggs, and eggs and ducks, like the boy you have heard of in the story, who had first mush and milk, and then, for variety, milk and mush. "So one day the Dean said to me, 'Hardy, can't we catch some of these little birds,--auks you call them?' 'How?' said I. 'I don't know,' said he; so we were just as well off as we had been before. But this set us to thinking again; and the birds being very tame, and flying low, it occurred to us that we might make a net, and fasten it to the end of our narwhal horn, which we had thus far only used while making our hut. Luckily for us, the Dean--who, I need hardly say, was a very clever boy in every sense--had learned from one of the sailors the art of net-making; and out of some of the narwhal sinew he contrived, in two days, to construct quite a good-sized net. And now the difficulty was to stretch it; but by this time our inventive faculties had been pretty well sharpened, and we were not long in finding that we could make a perfect hoop by lashing together three seal ribs which we picked up on the beach; and, having fastened this
