362 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. April 



sun, which had the effect of extracting from them the 

 greater part of the moisture. The helmet worsted 

 caps so kindly and considerately presented to the 

 Expedition by the Empress, are very warm and com- 

 fortable for sleeping in, and are much appreciated by 

 the men, who call them " Eugenies." 



' Experienced great difficulty in getting from one 

 floe on to another, some of them being, with the snow 

 on their surface, as much as eight and nine feet above 

 the others. After labouring and toiling for three and 

 a-half hours, " standing pulls " nearly the whole time, 

 during which period we had barely advanced 300 

 yards, I came to the determination of abandoning the 

 twenty-foot ice-boat. I did not arrive at this decision 

 until after very mature deliberation, and from my own 

 conviction that amongst such ice as we were then 

 encountering, should a disruption occur, the boats 

 would be of little avail to us, except to be used as a 

 ferry from one floe to another. For this purpose the 

 smaller boat will suffice. At 7 p.m. we arrived on 

 some young ice, between the floes and amongst hum- 

 mocks, that afforded us capital travelling. On this we 

 rattled gaily along, accomplishing half a mile in some- 

 thing like a couple of hours — good work for us. 

 10.15 p.m. pitched our tents on a regular palseocrystic 

 floe, having rounded hillocks on its surface from twenty- 

 live to thirty feet high. Distance marched eight miles ; 

 made good one mile. 



' 20th. — In consequence of an impervious fog we 

 were unable to make a start until 2 p.m. Even then 

 the weather was so thick that we experienced great 

 difficulty in making any head-way. Crossing small 



