270 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
The surface of the snow, thawing in the sun, 
and freezing at night, had become a strong crust, 
which sometimes gave way in a circle round our 
feet, immerging us in the soft snow beneath. 
The people were afflicted with snow blindness ; 
a kind of ophthalmia occasioned by the reflection 
of the sun’s rays in the spring. 
The miseries endured during the first journey of 
this nature, are so great, that nothing could induce 
the sufferer to undertake a second, while under 
the influence of present pain. He feels his frame 
crushed by unaccountable pressure, he drags a 
galling and stubborn weight at his feet, and his 
track is marked with blood. The dazzling scene 
around him affords no rest to his eye, no object 
to divert his attention from his own agonizing 
sensations. When he arises from sleep, half his 
body seems dead, till quickened into feeling by 
the irritation of his sores. But, fortunately for 
him, no evil makes an impression so evanescent 
as pain. It cannot be wholly banished, nor re- 
called with the force of reality, by any act of the 
mind, either to affectour , or to sym- 
pathize with another. The traveller soon forgets 
his sufferings, and at every future journey their 
recurrence is attended with diminished acuteness. 
It was not before the 10th or 12th of April 
