78 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 



the temperature is below twenty-two, and it is im- 

 possible to use a screen or a magnifying glass, the 

 mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an un- 

 mounted thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees, 

 and when the temperature is below fifty-eight an 

 approach makes a difference of three or four degrees. 

 So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as 

 wood, and the men got into them after much effort, 

 not to sleep but to feel their teeth chattering for hours, 

 the only warm parts of the body being the feet clad in 

 long woollen stockings. " There are patches of ice on 

 our knees," says Cagni, " like horses' knee-caps, and we 

 have others, both large and small, sometimes thick 

 enough to be scraped off with a knife, everywhere, but 

 especially on our cheeks and backs and in all places 

 where the perspiration has oozed through." 



Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed 

 somewhat out of place. When a suitable site was 

 chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near it the 

 three other sledges of the third detachment were 

 drawn up at a distance of about ten feet from each 

 other. The sledges of the second detachment as they 

 came up formed a second line, those of the third form- 

 ing another. The tents were pitched between two 

 sledges, generally those in the centre, the guy ropes 

 being fastened to the sledge runners, those at the ends 

 to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were 

 then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the 

 boats, and everything arranged under the tent. The 

 thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs were tethered, 

 when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges 

 away from the tents. While the men were taking 



