WINTER QUARTERS 



121 



now one mass of large ice splinters, standing on end and look- 

 ing exactly like highly magnified glass splinters on the top of 

 an old English garden wall. Snow had drifted in between the 

 pieces, and the sledge was bouncing along on top of it, shooting 

 off to the right or left, or, what was worse still, capsizing 

 whenever it hit one of those ice splinters. My guide and I 



LUNCHING ON THE KOOGOORA RIVER. 



were wallowing along in deep snow and had a highly disagreeable 

 time, the more so as we had left our snow-shoes behind, thinking 

 that there would not be much snow on the river. We camped 

 at 3 P.M., but we had no wood, and were obliged to break up 

 all our boxes, thus managing to make a small fire, though it 

 was hardly large enough to cook by, and we had to munch 

 crackers and chocolate from our Battle Creek rations, with 

 nothing to drink with it but water. 



I spent a very unpleasant night, as I tried to sleep native 

 fashion, viz., naked in the sleeping bag. I was shivering with 

 <cold for a couple of hours, then put on my shirt, next my 

 trousers, and after that my stockings. A fur parkey on top of 

 the shirt completed my dressing, but it was 5 A.M. before I had 

 got all my clothes on ; and then we turned out to meet another 

 day, with no other breakfast than crackers and water. That 

 day again we were wading through deep snow over heavy ice, 

 and every now and then we had to haul the sledge over some 

 gravel bars. Progress became easier the further we advanced 

 along the river, and instead of the low, monotonous coastland, 



