DR. KANE'S EXPEDITION. 489 



height, lying in parallel ridges, with the space between 

 too narrow for the sledge to be lowered into it safely, 

 and yet not wide enough for the runners to cross with- 

 out the aid of ropes to stay them. These spaces too 

 were generally choked with light snow, hiding the 

 openings between the ice-fragments. They were fear- 

 ful traps to disengage a limb from ; for every man knew 

 that a fracture, or a sprain even, would cost him his life. 

 Besides all this, the sledge was top-heavy with its load : 

 the maimed men could not bear to be lashed down tight 

 enough to secure them against falling off. Notwith- 

 standing our caution in rejecting every superfluous bur- 

 den, the weight, including bags and tent, was eleven 

 hundred pounds. 



" And yet our march for the first six hours was very 

 cheering. We made, by vigorous pulls and lifts, nearly 

 a mile an hour, and reached the new floes before we 

 were absolutely weary. Our sledge sustained the trial 

 admirably. Ohlsen, restored by hope, walked steadily 

 at the leading-belt of the sledge-lines ; and I began to 

 feel certain of reaching our half-way station of the day 

 before, where we had left our tent. But we were still 

 nine miles from it, when, almost without premonition, we 

 all became aware of an alarming failure of our energies. 



" I was of course familiar with the benumbed and 

 almost lethargic sensation of extreme cold : and once, 

 when exposed for some hours in the midwinter of Baf- 

 fin's Bay, I had experienced symptoms which I com- 

 pared to the diifused paralysis of the electro-galvanic 

 shock. But I had treated the sleepy comfort of freezing 

 as something like the embellishment of romance. I 

 had evidence now to the contrary. 



"Bonsall and Morton, two of our stoutest men, came 

 to rne, begging permission to sleep ; ' they were not 

 cold : the wind did not enter them now : a little sleep 



