i9"J 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 Ibs., personal gear 10 

 Ibs. When we started that bag was about 18 Ibs.: the accumu- 

 lation of ice was therefore 27 Ibs. 



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. II 4 



