14. In the matter of furs, no better can be selected than buffalo-skin, or wash-leather made of bear’s hide; though no covering can surpass that which is made from the skins of birds—Eider-ducks, for example—which is equally good for either summer or winter, during the march, or even during sleep, and which need be exchanged for furs only when the temperature during a night-camping falls 35° to 58° below zero F. Sheep-skin and wolf-skin are too heavy; and the reindeer-skin, though so light and warm, is not suitable, as it at once loses the hair when exposed to damp, and does not last a winter with constant use; but of these, the best are those of the young reindeer killed in autumn. Some Arctic travellers, in the absence of furs, have used an extra covering of light sailcloth, as a protection against the drifting snow, which penetrates the clothes and stiffens them. We have tried this experiment, but were not convinced of its success. In Parry’s second expedition, his people are said to have worn their furs next to their bodies, and to have found this warmer than the wearing of woollens next the skin; but this I am inclined to regard as a mistake. When furs are worn during the march, their congelation and consequent increase of weight are diminished by wearing the furs sometimes inside and sometimes outside. The inhabitants of Lapland and Kamschatka constantly wear the fur outside; and some Eskimo tribes wear double furs—one turned inside, the other outside. If cloth clothes are worn, their surface should be smooth, so as not to harbour the driving snow; and all buttons should be of a large size, as frozen fingers find it easier to manage them.
15. The covering for the feet of a sledge-party should be sailcloth boots, lined with flannel, and soled with stout felt; and it is not advisable to strengthen the soles by plaiting them with string, as the boot thereby loses that perfect pliability which is indispensable to preserve the foot from the danger of frost-bite. Hence also any covering of india-rubber is objectionable. Leather boots must not be used in sledging; because they become utterly unpliable at a low temperature, and make frost-bites inevitable; and when once put on they cannot be pulled off without being cut to pieces. All boots should be so large and their legs so wide, that they may be put on conveniently over the trousers; and sailcloth boots especially, because of their shrinking from frost, should be so wide, that they can be put on easily over three pairs of strong woollen stockings. The Eskimo, the inhabitants of Lapland, Kamschatka, and other northern nomad tribes, wear the dried grass of Cyperacites as their foot-coverings; and this might be recommended, if it did not also involve the use of skin-coverings for the feet, in which no European can make long marches, without their being inflamed. Because, in the Arctic regions, the condensation of moisture in the shape of ice is an enemy constantly to be guarded against, all stuffs are to be avoided which tend to harbour moisture, especially the linings of coats, pockets, and so forth, made of cotton instead of pure wool. India-rubber garments must never be used, as they prevent evaporation from the body.
16. If dogs are used to draw the large sledges along with men, they ought to be harnessed in the way which the sketch on a preceding page represents. The dog-sledge should be laid across the hinder part of the principal sledge, and made fast to it. If, however, dogs alone are employed, and at walking-pace, they are harnessed in pairs, one pair behind the other. Each dog should draw by a single trace, as we can only thus avoid the constant entangling of the rope-traces. If more than four dogs be employed, they cannot well go in pairs one before the other, but must be harnessed to the sledge in a row, side by side, and the traces must be long, so as to enable the most powerful and best-trained dogs, which are placed in the middle, to be somewhat in advance of the others. The dogs should be selected according to the special purpose for which they are to be employed; for, while an Eskimo dog will run, but shirks the effort of drawing heavy loads, a Newfoundland submits to its load, but, goes at a foot’s-pace. In the Hudson’s Bay territory a cross between a wolf and a dog is regarded as the best animal for draught, because it surpasses the dog proper in strength and courage. Newfoundlands of pure breed are, on the whole, most to be recommended, and next to them, the Eskimo dog, which has a good deal of the character of the wolf, though he is difficult to hold. These dogs, too, although they are indescribably, thievish, voracious, and ill-tempered, in consequence of their harsh treatment and bad feeding, have this further distinguishing quality, that they will stick to a retreating bear with wonderful pertinacity till the hunter comes up to kill it. European dogs are only to be taken when an expedition has not the opportunity of procuring dogs of the kinds we have mentioned; but, if they be employed, they should be strong and hardy, with long hair and thick coat. The purity of their breed is of less consequence than their being good-tempered, as fights between large dogs end in the destruction of the weaker. The Ostjaks, in the neighbourhood of Obdorsk, are the nomad tribes nearest Europe who use dogs for sledges; and their breed of dogs is far superior to any other, either in Lapland or Northern Russia. The dogs of Russia in Europe were employed in the expedition (1839) of Ziwolka and Mojsejew to Novaya Zemlya; but it does not appear that they answered the expectations which had been formed. In sledge-expeditions the dogs are allowed to sleep in the open air; but they must be fastened to stakes, lest the scenting some animal should tempt them to run off. We ourselves, however, allowed a small tent, weighing little, for the few dogs which accompanied us. Dogs whose paws have not been early hardened by long marches on the ice, easily hurt their feet, which do not heal during the journey; and wounds can only be prevented from getting worse by a daily application of collodion and brandy, and by a protection of flannel; and this is the treatment we pursued to Jubinal in the journey we are about to describe. Whenever a dog is exhausted by dragging, it is generally blooded in the tail or ear after the fashion followed by the Siberian tribes.
TOROSSY IN HARNESS.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY
1. From the preceding remarks on the equipment of a sledge, the reader will, perhaps, have gained a pretty clear notion of the procedure by which we are enabled to travel for weeks in Arctic wastes. This description will have shown him the various and manifold contingencies against which a leader has to provide, if he is to conduct an expedition safely and successfully, especially if he commands a body of men, who are neither so careful nor so observant as those who accompanied me in the sledge journeys I am about to describe.
2. I now pass to the first of these, the object of which was to determine the position and general relations of the new Land, which still remained a mystery to us, to reconnoitre a route for its exploration towards the north, and to ascertain what we could of the character of the intervening regions. I regarded the ascent of the high mountain—Cape Tegetthoff—which we had seen before us for months, as the preliminary step towards the attainment of these ends. Its great distance from the ship had rendered abortive all the attempts to reach it which had been made at the end of last autumn. With the beginning of March (1874) the sledging was now to commence in reality. Though the sun had returned on the 24th of February, it was seldom visible in the remaining days of that month; a heavy water-sky overspread the southern heavens, and the only cheerful precursors of spring were the birds which once more appeared in our neighbourhood. The snow had been distressingly soft, but the north-east winds which prevailed during the first days of March hardened it. When these winds fell, the temperature also fell, and although the beginning of March is regarded as a time little favourable for sledge travelling on account of the excessive cold, our impatience for action overcame all doubts and fears, and on the 9th one of our larger sledges stood ready, laden and packed for an expedition, equipped for a week. It carried an extra quantity of provisions, which were intended to form depôts. From the general store we took 39 lbs. of hard bread, 5 lbs. of pemmican, 16 lbs. of boiled beef, 6½ lbs. of lard, 1 lb. of pea-sausage, ½ lb. of salt and pepper, 6 lbs. of rice, 2 lbs. of grits, 5 lbs. of chocolate, 5 gallons of rum, 1 lb. of extract of meat, 2 lbs. of condensed milk, and 8 gallons of alcohol. The rest of the baggage consisted of such articles as we have described above. We had besides 3 breech-loaders and 100 cartridges, of which 40 were fired away.