April 22nd.—The wind blew in heavy squalls last night, and continued fresh this morning; but as we all dreaded a longer detention in our tent we resolved to push on at all hazards.
It was painful to witness the efforts of the poor fellows in their endeavours to protect their faces from the cold cutting wind as they plodded along, dragging the heavily laden sledges; but they seemed cheerful enough, and treated the numerous frost-bites that appeared on their cheeks as rather a good joke than anything else. The sun peeped out for a few moments during the afternoon; but a heavy mist hung over the land, entirely obscuring it from our view. The floes over which we travelled to-day were more level than any we had yet crossed, and infinitely larger; but as a set-off against this, we found the snow very deep, which rendered the dragging excessively laborious. Few hummocks adorned the edges of these floes. They appeared to have come into contact with each other in a most amicable manner, and then immediately united before any pressure could be exerted, so as to form the immense hedges of heaped-up masses of ice that have hitherto been our great bugbear. One floe crossed to-day was estimated at about a mile and three-quarters in length, and about six miles in circumference.
April 23rd.—Progressing but slowly. The travelling was very heavy, through deep soft snow, and we were delayed considerably by being obliged to make roads over broad belts of heavy hummocks.
We camped for the night on the verge of a floe, with enormous hummocks squeezed up together immediately in front. The prospect of advancing was not cheering! A S.E. breeze, springing up in the afternoon, sent the temperature down suddenly to -24°. Our invalids did not appear to be improving, and we were rather puzzled at some of their symptoms.
April 24th.—The greater part of the day was employed in cutting a road through a perfect sea of hummocks. They appeared to be interminable. From the highest we could see nothing like a floe, nothing but an uneven range of massive and shapeless blocks of ice. The road-making was very hard and very cold work, and the men had to be relieved pretty often with the tools.
Skill is of more avail at this sort of work than brute force. A skilled workman will soon demolish a large hummock, on which a strong but inexperienced man is wasting all his energy and strength in fruitless blows.
We had the satisfaction to-day of crossing the eighty-third parallel of latitude,[1] and of knowing that we were the first party of men that had ever reached such a high position. The wind to-day, although decidedly unpleasant, was of some service, for being from the southward we were able to make sail on our sledges and thus utilize the otherwise unwelcome breeze.
April 25th.—A beautiful day, but with a low temperature. A slight breeze from the eastward reminded us that we possessed noses. These latter appendages have been voted decided nuisances, and could easily be dispensed with whilst sledging! The travelling to-day was a slight improvement on our preceding day’s work. Indeed at one time we were able to advance our two light sledges “single banked,” that is with their own individual crews, instead of employing both crews to drag on one sledge at a time; but this was only for a very short distance. The snow was very deep and of a tenacious consistency, clinging to the sledge runners and thereby seriously impeding our progress. So powerful were the rays of the sun this afternoon that my thermometer, when exposed to them, rose rapidly from -17° to -3°. At 6 P.M. I observed faint parhelia showing prismatic colours. We were delayed towards the end of the day by a broad belt of hummocks, through which a road had to be cut. The large hummocks passed to-day, although smooth and rounded on the top and on one side, were precipitous on the other and were fully thirty feet high. Some of them appeared like isolated fragments in the centre of a floe, and resembled the large grounded floe-bergs in the vicinity of the “Alert’s” winter quarters. They were undoubtedly portions of the floe which had been broken off and squeezed up under irresistible pressure.
April 26th.—Temperature to-day as high as -2°. For the first time, since we have been away, were we able thoroughly to enjoy our lunch. On account of the increased warmth, our bacon was more palateable, and we could throw our wearied forms on the soft snow and discuss our pint of tea without running the risk of having our toes frost-bitten. The sensation of possessing feet was a novel and delightful one. Several of the men have of late been attacked by violent bleedings of the nose; but this, in all probability, is due to the rise of temperature. No improvement in our travelling—still the same old story—hummocks and snow-drifts, snow-drifts and hummocks. So dense were the latter that, when we halted for the night, it really seemed as if we had arrived at “the end of all things;” for in front of us was an apparently impassable sea of hummocks extending north, east, and west as far as the range of vision. A dismal prospect, indeed! But we did not despair, and still hoped we might cut our way through these obstacles, and emerge upon floes along which we should have little difficulty in advancing.