Instead of giving simply a brief résumé of our sledging life, it will, I think, be more interesting to follow the sledge parties day by day in their arduous march to the northward, and their still more irksome and wearisome return journey. To do this, it will be as well to extract portions from my daily journal, avoiding repetition as much as possible, and commencing on the day after that on which we were left by our supporting sledges to prosecute our undertaking.
April 12th.—A most gratifying and unexpected change of weather enabled us to pass a comparatively comfortable night, the temperature inside our tent being as high as +16°. Hitherto it has stood at, and generally far below, zero. With the thermometer in the air registering a few degrees below zero, it is just possible to keep ourselves warm enough inside our tents to sleep; but with a temperature ranging from -35° downwards sleep is almost out of the question.
In order to keep the sun as much as possible at our backs during the time we were on the march, we adopted the system of travelling, whilst on our outward journey, between noon and midnight. The cooks were, as a rule, called at about half-past nine in the forenoon, and the sledges were generally on the move about half-past eleven. This time of travelling was selected more with a view to the prevention of snow blindness than anything else.
After breakfast the road-makers, six in number, were advanced for the purpose of constructing a road through an ugly fringe of hummocks on the southern side of which our camp had been pitched; the rest of the party being employed in striking the tents, packing and bringing on the sledges, one by one, as far as the road was practicable. Being a bright sunny day the tent robes and other gear were triced up to the boats’ masts and yards to dry. The sun was powerful enough to extract the moisture from the woollen substance, which would freeze, forming a sort of hoar-frost that could with ease be brushed or shaken off.
On these bright clear days, the snow on the surface of the floes over which we were journeying was so highly crystallized that it sparkled and glittered with the most brilliant iridescent colours. The ground upon which we trod appeared to be strewn with bright and lustrous gems, of which the most prominent were diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. It was indeed a fairy-like scene; but our duties were too matter of fact to admit of our indulging for any time in romance or sentiment.
A glance at our comrades would quickly recall us to the reality of our situation. Their dirty and rough-clad forms were strangely at variance with the scene of enchantment that might be conjured up. With faces scarified by the combined action of sun and frost, and black with smoke, with the tips of their fingers senseless from repeated frost-bites, with sore shoulders and aching limbs, the wearied sledgers pursued their way, not altogether indifferent to the beauties that surrounded them, but careless of the difficulties and discomforts they encountered.
During the afternoon, being about three miles from the nearest land, we observed, to our surprise, the fresh traces on the snow of a little lemming! It is hard to tell what inducement this little animal could have had for straying so far away from the land, and consequently from its means of obtaining the wherewithal to support life!
We passed through a dense mass of hummocks, emerging, eventually, on a heavy floe of “ancient lineage,” whose surface was undulating, and adorned with veritable “ice-mountains” some twenty feet in height. These were generally of a rounded form and of a smooth surface, and appeared to be the result of long and continuous snow-drift. We camped on the northern edge of the floe, the men being employed in cutting a road through the hummocks whilst supper was preparing, in readiness for our start on the morrow.
A journey through, and over, hummocks is the most unsatisfactory kind of travelling that can possibly be imagined. “Standing pulls” must be the order of the day, and the incessant “one, two, three, haul” is constantly heard. The trudging backwards and forwards to drag the different sledges to the front along the same road is decidedly monotonous; but this had no effect on the cheerfulness and general good spirits of the men, who were all actuated by the same zealous desire to do their best. The temperature all day had been delightful, ranging from 8° to 20° below zero.
April 13th.—A dull, cloudy day, with the sun shining at intervals, and the temperature as low at one time as -33°. We cut a road and dragged the sledges through a fringe of hummocks about two hundred yards in breadth, then crossed a fine large floe that afforded us capital travelling for nearly a mile in a northerly direction, then through another long fringe of large and troublesome hummocks, until we were completely brought to a standstill by a mass of enormous fragments of ice, piled up in an irregular form to the height of from twenty to thirty feet. Through this obstacle we resolved to cut a road: in fact, no other alternative offered. It was a long and tedious job; but with such a hearty good will did the men work that we had the satisfaction of dragging our sledges over a very rough road and encamping for the night with the difficulties in our rear. Parr with pickaxe and shovel was a first-rate “navvy,” and worked like a horse.