170 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. October 



have learnt our work except by the actual experience 

 we have gone through.' 



Sledge travelling during the autumn is necessarily 

 accompanied by greater hardships and discomforts 

 than that during the spring, to say nothing of its being 

 usually undertaken by inexperienced men. During 

 the spring the weather, and consequently the travelling, 

 is constantly improving, and the equipment, moistened 

 during the earlier days, can usually be dried before it 

 becomes very bad. During the autumn the tempera- 

 ture, too warm at first, steadily falls, and each day adds 

 its modicum of dampness to the tent, blanket-bags, and 

 clothing, until at last they contain so much moisture 

 and become so frozen and contracted in size as to be 

 almost unserviceable. The sodden blanket-robes fro- 

 zen as hard as boards can scarcely be unrolled, and 

 the stockings and foot-wrappers, put on damp in the 

 morning, are by night frozen so hard into the # canvas 

 boots as to refuse to separate unless cut apart or melted 

 inside the blanket-bag by the heat of the body. 



Markham's journey of nineteen- days was accom- 

 panied with rhe usual hardships and sufferings. The 

 deep soft snow, reaching sometimes above the knee, 

 was nearly impassable ; being a totally new experience 

 the travellers were unprepared for it. In the daily 

 endeavour to advance, the three officers walked in front 

 of the party, treading down a road through the snow ; 

 and as the most severe labour devolved on the sledge 

 which happened to be in front, its crew was augmented. 

 The order of march was changed daily as well as the 

 leading men on the drag ropes ; when the snow was very 

 deep, the whole party of twenty-one men had to drag 





