HARDENED TO COLD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue VIII, 24 August 1895, Page 247

HARDENED TO COLD.

How much usage will do in toughening the human body is well shown by some facts about the natives of Siberia, as recorded by the author of ‘Reindeer, Dogs, and Snowshoes.’ Cold, he says, seemed to have no effect upon them. Frequently, when we couli not expose our ears for two minutes without having them frozen, the natives would go for an hour at a time with their hoods thrown back from their beads ; and when it required constant watchfulness to keep our noses from freezing, they did not appear to notice the temperature at all. One morning in January I stood in perfect amazement at their disregard of the low temperature. They worked for at least half an hour with bare hands, packing up the tent and utensils, handling the packages and lashing them together with icy seal thongs, without experiencing the least apparent inconvenience, while I partly froze my fingers striking a light for my pipe with a flint and steel, the whole operation taking not more than three minutes. The night before, happening to go out of the tent after our men had retired, I passed their camp, which was near by. Their fire had burned to a pile of embers, barely affording me light enough to distinguish the sleepers. They were lying coiled up on small deerskins, with their backs to the embers, and their fur coats thrown loosely over their naked bodies.

The coat of one of them had slipped almost entirely off his body, leaving his back and shoulders exposed to a temperature of eighteen degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, and though his hair was frosted, he snored as soundly as if in comfortable quarters.