250 Chapter VI. 



strong seal-hook into it as well. But while I was off my 

 guard for a moment they gave a tug. I lay with my 

 hinder-part where my legs had been, and we went on at 

 lightning speed that substantial part of my body leaving 

 a deep track in the snow. This sort of thing went on 

 time after time. I lost the board I should have sat on, 

 then the whip, then my gloves, then my cap these 

 losses not improving my temper. Once or twice I ran 

 round in front of the dogs, and tried to force them to 

 turn by lashing at them with the whip. They jumped 

 to both sides, and only tore on the faster ; the reins got 

 twisted round my ankles, and I was thrown flat on the 

 sledge, and they went on more wildly than ever. This 

 was my first experience in clog-driving on my own account, 

 and I will not pretend that I was proud of it. I inwardly 

 congratulated myself that my feats had been unobserved." 



" In the afternoon I examined the melted water of the 

 newly-formed brownish-red ice, of which there is a good 

 deal in the openings round us here. The microscope 

 proved this colour to be produced by swarms of small 

 organisms, chiefly plants quantities of diatoms and 

 some algae, a few of them very peculiar in form." 



(t Saturday, October 2ist. I have stayed in to-day 

 because of an affection of the muscles, or rheumatism, 

 which I have had for some clays on the right side of 

 my body, and for which the doctor is ' massaging ' 

 me, thereby greatly adding to my sufferings. Have 

 I really grown so old and palsied, or is the whole 



