EFFECTS OP THE COLD. 441 



rations steadily lessen, the baggage he has to draw seems 

 to increase, the niglitly chills, the disturbed digestion 

 from insufficient nourishment, the cold, and so on, lead 

 to depression or sickness, particularly to dysentery. The 

 tongue, is often covered with blisters from taking the 

 food boiling hot. The constant change from wet to frost 

 leads to wounds in the limbs, to the utter rotting and 

 destruction of clothes, as well as to other internal evils, 

 at last we went about in little else than torn stockino-s. 

 Upon leaving the tent after several days' snow-storm one 

 felt all the feebleness of convalescence. With gnawing 

 hunger drowsiness was combined, which so overcame 

 some of our party that they dragged with closed eyes, 

 only half awake, and between the short pauses sank at 

 once to sleep. Of course they had to be awakened imme- 

 diately. 



As we struck our tent at six a.m. on the 17th of April, 

 the light-lying snow was four feet deep. On the 18th the 

 cold again reached 13° Fahr., the daily distance made under 

 the greatest exertions attendant upon great exhaustion, 

 was but a few nautical miles. For hours too-ether 

 icebergs already passed seemed unchanged in point of 

 distance. Not until the 19th did our road improve, when 

 we slept better than we had done for a long time. One 

 single sunny morning with moderate cold, how it raised 

 the spirits and quieted the nerves ! 



Everywhere from the direction of the snow-drifts could 

 we tell the local change of the prevailing wind. On the 

 20th, south of Devil's Cape, we killed a bear which was 

 on the point of attacking \is in the tent ; its fat freed us 

 for some time (from the increasing want of fuel to melt 

 the snow) from the fatiguing and precarious task of 



