286 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. MabcB 



detained an hour clearing the snow off the sail over the 

 hole ; and repacking the sledge. The travelling now 

 became worse ; we were keeping to the land, and the 

 whole of the drift between the slope of the cliff and the 

 hummocks was at a considerable angle, sometimes very 

 steep, up and down hill always ; the latter we did not 

 object to, though the sledge capsized frequently, but 

 the former gave us much trouble, and unless there had 

 been four of us our progress would have been very 

 slow, for the dogs are of little or no use in this kind of 

 travelling ; one man walks ahead to lead them, while 

 the other three, having cut a footing with a pickaxe, sit 

 down and with " One, two, three, haul ! " drag together, 

 until the sledge is up, when the dogs, finding the strain 

 eased, start off at a full swing down the hill the other 

 side ; the sledge slides down a short way sideways and 

 then capsizes, sometimes turning over three or four 

 times ; this style of thing went, on incessantly until we 

 became rather more knowing, and found it better for 

 one to walk down the hill very slowly in front of the 

 dogs with the whip in his hand ; by so doing we some- 

 times avoided the usual capsize, being able to ease the 

 sledge down gradually. 



6 After half a mile of such work we came to the 

 conclusion that, although the pack beneath us was 

 nothing but what is commonly called 'rubble,' it 

 could not be much worse than what we were then 

 having, and determined to try it. To get the sledge 

 down from our position, which was about twenty feet 

 above the pack, we untoggled the dogs, secured 

 the drag-ropes and tent guys to the back of the sledge, 

 and then, all having obtained as firm a footing as 



