I902] THE HARNESS 339 



extremely rare, and usually after an hour's marching one's feet 

 perspired freely in the coldest weather. One great advantage 

 is that there is absolutely no restraint to the circulation. 



Before leaving the subject of dress one ought to mention 

 the goggles, which were worn almost as constantly as many of 

 the articles I have described. A few men preferred the 

 ordinary wire-gauze type with smoked glass, but a drawback 

 to these was their liability to become frosted over. The 

 alternatives were to have a piece of leather with a slit in place 

 of the glass, or to have goggles cut out from a slip of wood. 

 Personally I much preferred the latter, and in the end invari- 

 ably used them ; mine were very carefully shaped to fit over 

 the nose and eyes, had a considerable cross-shaped aperture, 

 and were blackened outside and in. 



One other article of sledge furniture deserves notice — the 

 harness. Each man had a broad band of webbing passing 

 round his waist and supported by braces over the shoulders ; 

 the two ends of the band joined in an iron ring, to which a 

 rope was attached which could be secured to the sledge or the 

 trace. In the old days men were accustomed to pull from the 

 shoulder, and thus of necessity assumed a somewhat lop-sided 

 attitude ; with our arrangement, by adjusting the braces the 

 weight could be distributed very evenly over the upper part of 

 the body, and this I believe made the pulling easier and gave 

 greater freedom for breathing. 



From the foregoing the reader will, I hope, have gathered 

 some general idea of the objects and methods of sledge- 

 travelling. He will see how varied is the assortment of articles 

 with which the traveller provides himself; he will understand 

 something of the rigid nature of the sledging routine and the 

 simplicity of the sledging life ; he will perceive how the sledge 

 party are housed, and fed, and clothed, and how their absence 

 is prolonged. Above all, he will realise how dependent is a 

 sledging expedition on the efficiency of its organisation and the 

 care of its preparation. 



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