308 DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK. 



task which we had undertaken. By winding to the 

 right and left, and by occasionally retracing our steps 

 when we had selected an impracticable route, we 

 managed to get over the first few miles without 

 much embarrassment, but farther on the track was 

 rough past description. I can compare it to nothing 

 but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely 

 packed together and piled up over a vast plain in great 

 heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of 

 level surface and requiring the traveler to pick the 

 best footing he can over the inequalities, — some- 

 times mounting unavoidable obstructions to an eleva- 

 tion of ten, and again more than a hundred feet 

 above the general level. 



The interstices between these closely accumulated 

 ice masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted 

 snow. The reader will readily imagine the rest. He 

 will see the sledges winding through the tangled 

 wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs 

 pulling and pushing up their respective loads, as Na- 

 poleon's soldiers may be supposed to have done when 

 drawing their artillery through the steep and rugged 

 passes of the Alps. He will see them clambering 

 over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which 

 there is no opening, and again descending on the 

 other side, the sledge often plunging over a precipice, 

 sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again 

 he will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross 

 or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and 

 handspike ; or, again, unable even with these appli- 

 ances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek 

 a better track ; and they may be lucky enough to 

 find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and 

 uneven surface of which they will make a mile or so 



