1870 WESTERN SLEDGE JOURNEY. 29 



dating* the comforts of our Arctic tent. The sail had 

 driven the sledge very fast — in fact, too fast for some 

 of them. They proceeded till the regular time was up, 

 having made good (to judge by our walking) ten 

 miles. 



' 17th. — Temperature 12°. Blowing a whole north- 

 east gale all night ; so although Ayles and I were late 

 returning yesterday, we have lost no time. The porch 

 was completely filled with drift, which formed a wall 

 quite three feet thick, through which the cook and 

 I. burrowed out with a shovel. The drift was still 

 blowing some fifteen to twenty feet above the floe, 

 hiding everything a few yards distant, though a bright 

 sun was trying to penetrate through, and there appeared 

 plenty of blue sky overhead. The sledge was all but 

 buried. 



' After half a pipe in the tent, digging out sledge, 

 &c, made sail, but the gale broke half an hour after, 

 as suddenly as it began, and the men were not sorry 

 to resume their drag belts. The drift has made the 

 travelling soft and heavy in places, but in others it is 

 as hard as ever. It is worth observing that in no case 

 did bare ice show out, which leads me to think the 

 floes in the bays are not round-topped, or being so, 

 the hillocks are small and the snow very deep on 

 them. Another thinor is the entire absence of even 

 isolated hummocks, which would seem to indicate 

 either that the water is too shallow to admit of their 

 being drifted in, or that the ice in the bays is of great 

 thickness, and the influence of tide so little felt that it 

 does not break up from year to year. 



' 18^A. — Taking into consideration the state of the 



