1911] STATE OF SLEEPING—BAGS 49 
blankets. I expect it was as near an approach to bliss as a man 
can get on this earth. 
Sleeping-bags. (Written August 3, 1911.)—The life of 
a man on such a journey as this depends mainly upon the life of 
his sleeping-bag. We all three of us took eiderdown linings. 
Bill’s bag proved really too small to take his eiderdown, and 
on the return journey his bag split down the seams to an alarm- 
ing extent, letting in the cold air. Latterly in this journey it was 
by no means an uncommon experience for us to take over an 
hour in getting into our bags. One night I especially remember 
when Bill had practically given up all hope of getting his head 
into his. He finally cut off the flaps of his eiderdown, and with 
Birdie on one side and myself on the other we managed to lever 
the lid of the head of the bag open and gradually he got his 
head into it. I made a great mistake in taking a ‘large-sized’ 
bag—though it was a small one. What a man really wants is 
a large ‘middle-sized’ bag. The last fortnight, whenever the 
temperature was very low, I never thawed out the parts of my 
bag which were not pressing tight up against my body. I have 
forgotten what Bill’s and Birdie’s bags weighed when we got 
in. Mine (bag and eiderdown) was 45 lbs., personal gear 10 
Ibs. When we started that bag was about 18 lbs.: the accumu- 
lation of ice was therefore 27 lbs. 
Birdie’s bag just fitted him beautifully, though perhaps it 
would have been a little small with an eiderdown inside. As I 
understand from Atkinson, Birdie had undoubtedly a greater 
heat supply than other men ordinarily have. He never had 
serious trouble with his feet, while ours were constantly frost- 
bitten. He slept I should be afraid to say how much longer than 
we did, even in the last days. It was a pleasure to lie awake, 
practically at any rate all night, and hear his snores. Largely 
owing to the arrangement of toggles, also not having shipped his 
eiderdown bag, but mainly due to his extraordinary energy, he 
many times turned his bag during the journey, and thus he got 
rid of a lot of the moisture in his bag, which came out as snow 
or actual knobs of ice. When we did turn our bags, the only 
way was directly we turned out, and even then you had to be 
quick before the bag froze. Getting out of the tent at night, it 
was quite a race to get back to your bag, before it began to get 
hard again. Of course this was in the lowest temperatures. 
VOL, 1I—4 
