CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE DIFFICULTIES MULTIPLYING. — SLEDGE BROKEN. —REFLECTIONS ON THH 

 PROSPECT. —THE MEN BREAKING DOWN. — WORSE AND WORSE. —THE SIT- 

 UATION.— DEFEAT OF MAIN PARTY.— RESOLVE TO SEND THE PARTY BACK 

 AND CONTINUE THE JOURNEY WITH DOGS. 



April 24th. 



These journal entries are becoming rather mono- 

 tonous. I have little to set down to-day that I did 

 not set down yesterday. There is no variety in 

 this journeying over the same track, week in and 

 week out, in the same endless snarl continually, — to- 

 day almost in sight of our camp of yesterday, the 

 sledge broken, the men utterly exhausted, and the 

 dogs used up. We are now twenty-two days from the 

 schooner, and have made on our course not more than 

 an average of three miles a day. From Cairn Point 

 we are distant about thirty miles, and our progress 

 from that place has been slow indeed. Grinnell Land 

 looms up temptingly above the frozen sea to the 

 north of us, but it rises very slowly. 1 have tried to 

 carry out my original design of striking for Cape 

 Sabine, but the hummocks were wholly impassable in 

 that direction, and I have had to bear more to the 

 northward. The temperature has risen steadily, but 

 it is still very low and colder than during the greater 

 part of the winter at Port Foulke. The lowest to- 

 day was 19° below zero, calm and clear, and the sun 

 blazing upon us as in the early spring-time at home. 



