102 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. May 



Mount Hooker. So we went on for two days, until 

 going back seemed as hard work as going on. Our 

 provisions would compel us to start homeward on the 

 23rd. We could not do two miles a-day, and the 

 men were falling sick. I did not encourage inspection 

 of legs, and tried to make them think as little of the 

 stiffness as possible, for I knew the unpleasant truth 

 would soon enough be forced upon us. 



'We started again on the evening of the 19th, and 

 worked away as before ; but our progress was ridicu- 

 lously small, and something had to be done : so leaving 

 the sledge we started in two ranks, four a-breast, to 

 make a road to the shore, for the actual dragging was 

 nothing compared to the exertion of making the road. 

 The shore still looked about one mile off : it had 

 looked the same for two days past, and, to our astonish- 

 ment and dismay, we walked for five hours without 

 reaching it. It was evidently impossible, on a floe so 

 level that there was nothing in sight the size of a 

 brick, to estimate the distance of the high and pre- 

 cipitous cliffs in front of us. I altered my plans and 

 sent them back to lunch and rest, while Gray and I 

 went on. It took us two hours more to reach the 

 cliffs, and when we did, it was to find the same deep 

 snow reach their very foot ; for a hundred yards from 

 the shore the ice was seamed with wide cracks covered 

 by snow, into which the sledge itself might have dis- 

 appeared. These had water in them, the surface of 

 which was quite fresh, probably due to the glacier 

 which we knew to be close by, though now everything 

 was hidden by a thick fog. 



1 1 now saw to my great disappointment that we 



