134 A DANGEROUS SITUATION. 



was not possible, and shelter was nowhere to be found 

 upon the unbroken plain. There was but one direc- 

 tion in which we could move, and that was with our 

 backs to the gale. Much as I should have liked to 

 continue the journey one day more, it was clear to 

 me that longer delay would not alone endanger the 

 lives of one or two members of my party, but would 

 wholly defeat the purposes of the expedition by the 

 destruction of all of us. 



It was not without much difficulty that the tent 

 was taken clown and bundled upon the sledge. The 

 wind blew so fiercelv that we could scarcelv roll it up 

 with our stiffened hands. The men were suffering 

 terribly, and could only for a few moments hold on 

 to the hardened canvas. Their fingers, freezing con- 

 tinually, required active pounding to keep them upon 

 the flickering verge of life. We did not wait for neat 

 stowage or an orderly start. Danger suggests prompt 

 expedients. 



Our situation at this camp was as sublime as it was 

 dangerous. We had attained an altitude of five thou- 

 sand feet above the level of the sea, and we were sev- 

 enty miles from the coast, in the midst of a vast frozen 

 Sahara, immeasurable to the human eye. There was 

 neither hill, mountain, nor gorge anywhere in view. 

 We had completely sunk the strip of land which lies 

 between the mer de glace and the sea ; and no object 

 met the eye but our feeble tent, which bent to the 

 storm. Fitful clouds swept over the face of the full- 

 orbed moon, which, descending toward the horizon, 

 glimmered through the drifting snow that whirled out 

 of the illimitable distance, and scudded over the icy 

 plain ; — to the eye, in undulating lines of downy soft- 

 ness ; to the flesh, in showers of piercing darts. 



