SLEDGE JOURNEY. 425 



tually destroys all its warming properties, mixed into it like 

 a mash, and then follows laborious packing up of the 

 clothes, in order to be prepared for all weathers. 

 The frozen boots must first be thawed with the hands, 

 and the folds taken out, the tent freed from snow, and 

 beaten until pliable. The sleeping- sack receives the 

 same treatment, which, as a sign of our disgust and 

 its daily-increasing weight from the ice, we named " the 

 Walrus." 



The soaked sealskin clothino; freezes at once in the 

 air, and damp condenses on the hair in frost-blossoms. 

 One or the other rubs his face with scraped snow to 

 refresh his eyes — a novel kind of washing, in default of 

 water, though with the slightest breath of wind his hands 

 are in danger of freezing. After every snow-storm, tent 

 and sledge has to be dug out, and the contents cleaned 

 with difficulty. 



All this business occupies about two hours, when the 

 traces are taken up with great satisfaction, as a long- 

 looked-for release from the pain of the nightly couch. 

 The sledge is loosened from its frozen position, and the 

 journey continued, which, after twenty-three days, 

 brought us to IT of Lat., the most northerly point ever 

 reached on the east coast of Greenland. 



But we will now give an account of this expedition. 

 It ought really to have begun on the 7th of March ; but an 

 accident happened to one of our comrades, who, on the 

 evening of the 6th, had been attacked in the darkness 

 by a bear, and severely injured. This occasioned some 

 delay, and we started on the morning of the 8th of March. 



We had two sledges and ten men. The smaller of the 

 two was harnessed to four men, and was to accompany 



