THE SITUATION. 317 



to it. Cold, penetrating to the very sources of life, 

 dangers from frost and dangers from heavy lifting, 

 labors which have no end, — a heartless sticking in 

 the mud, as it were, all the time ; and then comes 

 snow-blindness, cheerless nights, with imperfect rest 

 in snow-huts, piercing storms and unsatisfying food. 

 This the daily experience, and this the daily prospect 

 ahead ; to-day closing upon us in the same vast ice- 

 jungle as yesterday. My party have, I must own, 

 good reason to be discouraged ; for human beings 

 were never before so beset with difficulties and so in- 

 extricably tangled in a wilderness. We got into a 

 cul de sac to-day, and we had as much trouble to sur- 

 mount the lofty barrier which bounded it as Jean Val- 

 jean to escape from the cul-de-sac Genrot to the con- 

 vent yard. But our convent yard was a hard old floe, 

 scarce better than the hummocked barrier. 



I feel to-night that I am getting rapidly to the end 

 of my rope. Each day strengthens the conviction, 

 not only that we can never reach Grinnell Land, with 

 provisions for a journey up the coast to the Polar Sea, 

 but that it cannot be done at all. I have talked to 

 the officers, and they are all of this opinion. They 

 say the thing is hopeless. Dodge put it thus : " You 

 might as well try to cross the city of New York over 

 the house-tops !" They are brave and spirited men 

 enough, lack not courage nor perseverance ; but it 

 does seem as if one must own that there are some 

 difficulties which cannot be surmounted. But I have 

 in this enterprise too much at stake to own readily to 

 defeat, and we will try again to-morrow. 



April 27th. 



Worse and worse ! We have to-day made but 

 little progress, the sledge is badly broken, and I am 



