220 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Mar. 



only once before, and then by moonlight, and Mene 

 had never crossed from north to south. 



We hardly knew what to do in our dilemma. To 

 await the men and have them pass unseen would result 

 in our sleeping on the ice-cap with no sleeping-bags — 

 not a warm outlook. There were ominous discomforts 

 and no small amount of danger in going on. A descent 

 by the wrong glacier might result in a drop into one of 

 the numerous intersecting cracks, or we might bring 

 up against a vertical face blocking our course com- 

 pletely. 



We went on. The sastrugi (wind-carved ridges) cut 

 our path at right angles, and the intervening hollows gave 

 to our sledges the motion of a ship in a heavy sea. I 

 was too much occupied with the antics of my own sledge, 

 and I soon lost Mene as he disappeared in the dark- 

 ness, stern first, after running over his dogs and cap- 

 sizing his sledge. He was waiting for me at the bottom 

 of the Clements Markham Glacier, having made record 

 time. 



Even here, where sea ice generally exists, there was 

 open water, which forced us to take to the ice-foot 

 along the shore until we were blocked by a projecting 

 buttress. As we had no testing-iron, we wisely ran no 

 risks; we could plainly see phosphorescence on the sur- 

 face of the ice, indicative of only a few hours' freezing. 



We made tea and ate a piece of chocolate — all we 

 had — under a shelf of rock. Within an hour the other 

 two men overtook us, exclaiming that they thought we 

 were back on the glacier. 



As we were about to prepare for the night, to my 

 astonishment we saw a light out on the ice. Noo- 

 ka-ping-wa was looking it over with a candle, and he 



