440 THE GEKMAN ARCTIC EXrEDITION. 



gles the sledge followed, sinking deep into the snow-dust, 

 almost as much swimming as gliding. 



We did not 'now depend much upon the daylight, as 

 the sun only remained a short time below the horizon. 

 We slept in the day, marched during the night, and at 

 midnight had a short rest in the tent, rendered very 

 painful by the finest. 



Shortly after midnight the sun rose blood-red above 

 the faint violet silhouette of the mountain ridge of the 

 most northerly discovered land (King William's Land), 

 and brightly shone the rocky front of Cape Peschel 

 towering in the waste. Radiant lay the endless snow- 

 fields in a yellowish rosy shimmer, over which the 

 wind rolls thick veils of snow, resembling in effect of 

 colour, from the illumination of the low-lying sun, an 

 undulating flow of molten steel,^ driving away over the 

 diamond-sparkling road, and the long bluish shadows of 

 the men breaking through the snowy masses as they 

 knocked against each other in their violent and unequal 

 motion, a spectacle and a work for the cursed, which 

 Dante might have held up to the coryphees of his infernal 

 regions. 



During the short rests on our return journey we em- 

 ployed ourselves by spHtting the frozen flesh into strips 

 — as hard as oak — to put into the kettle with the soup 

 or coff'ee, that we might the better enjoy it. 



Only by enduring the extremes of hunger and thirst, 

 and enjoying the smallest possible quantity of sleep, is 

 the Arctic traveller enabled to reach his:li latitudes. 

 After a few weeks his strength greatly decreases, his 



* Bessemer-flufh in the original. (^V.) 



