380 VOYAGE TO THE TOLAR SEA. Mat 



should any more men be compelled to fall out from 

 the drag ropes, upon abandoning the boat. We look 

 upon it as a dernier ressort, but an imperative 

 necessity. If any more men are attacked our only 

 chance of reaching the shore, before our provisions are 

 expended, will be by lightening our sledges as much 

 as possible, and the first thing to be discarded must 

 be the boat. We must take our chance of the ice 

 remaining stationary, and hope that no disruption will 

 take place before we gain the shore. The first part of 

 the day was occupied in dragging the sledges over our 

 rough road through the hummocks, but at length we 

 arrived on our old friend the large floe, over which we 

 made good travelling. The time and trouble devoted 

 to making a road during our outward journey is now 

 amply compensated for. 



' " Old Joe," as the men irreverently term Cape 

 Joseph Henry, is looming larger and darker, and 

 Mount Pullen was seen to-day for the first time for 

 some days. Again, strange to say, have we come 

 across the tracks of a hare, being fully twenty-three 

 miles from the land. The traces were almost too in- 

 distinct to determine the direction in which the little 

 animal was travelling, but it appeared to be going to 

 the northward, and was, like the one observed on our 

 outward journey, evidently worn out and tired, the 

 footsteps being short. Distance made good two miles 

 and-a-quarter. 



8 18th. — The sun is very powerful, and thaws and 

 dries everything that may happen to be exposed to it 

 resting on a dark substance. The snow on the floes is 

 not yet in any way affected by its influence. 



