124 NEAREST THE POLE 



had ceased and the sun was trying to shine. Some 

 season's ice and two narrow leads of recent ice were 

 crossed in this march. The rest of the way we had 

 heavy old floes, some of them the blue hummock kind, 

 on which the going was good, interrupted by old rup- 

 tures and belts of rubble ice over which the going was 

 very bad. These places served as nets to catch all the 

 snow blown off the level places, and there it lay soft 

 and deep. It was going that would seriousl}^ dis- 

 courage an ordinary party, but my little brown 

 children of the ice, cheerfully tooled their sledges 

 through it with the skill bom of life-long experience 

 and habit. 



The wind and thick weather came on again during 

 the night of the 4th and continued. We got under 

 way at 3:30 a. m. and found following the trail very 

 difficult in the diffused light, and possible only with 

 constant attention and straining of the eyes. This 

 was distinctly fatiguing, and added to the depressing 

 effect of the weather, was a strain which I made up 

 my mind to avoid as much as possible in future by 

 not travelling in thick weather except when com- 

 pelled to. The going for the first two hours was 

 through a zone of rafters and rubble with deep snow; 

 after that came old blue-topped floes (some of them 

 more massive than I had ever seen) interrupted by old 

 rafters. 



In some places the floes were level, swept free of 

 snow in large patches, and beautifully blue. One 

 bit of season's ice and two or three narrow leads, or 

 rather cracks, were crossed. I was not surprised at 

 the end of six hours to come upon Henson in camp 



