162 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



chocolate in the middle of the day while on the march. To 

 raise our tent, or at any rate to unlash the sledges and get hold 

 of the sleeping bags, crawl into them, and wait there for lunch 

 to be cooked is not very pleasant, and takes time, while we get 

 much more snow into the bags which sooner or later melts and 

 makes the sleeping bags very uncomfortable. Our experience was 

 that it was much better to travel throughout the day and camp 

 correspondingly earlier at night. It was Mr. Lemngwell, not 

 mvself, who advocated this arrangement, but before many days 

 I was convinced that he was right, and we never stopped to eat 

 lunch for more than a few minutes ; travelling over rough ice 

 gives more than enough opportunities for halting and rest. 



The kerosene saved by omitting the hot lunch and only 

 drinking cold water with our meals, which as a rule we found 

 quite sufficient, amply compensated for the extra expenditure 

 of fuel caused by not using a cooker, and, as said before, the 

 comfort which we got out of the heat was in our opinion worth 

 more than either lunch or tea after the meals. As a result 

 of not being too economical with the fuel we always had dry 

 mittens and stockings, etc., without having to take them wet into 

 our sleeping bags for drying ; and I may here state that we never 

 suffered any great inconvenience from moisture in the bags. 



My observations about the advisability of comparative comfort 

 on a sledge trip are all derived from Mr. Leffingwell's and my 

 own experience, but it was mostly due to him that the comfort 

 of the party was taken so much into consideration from the 

 start. In the beginning I was not so much in favour of it, but 

 I soon became convinced, and remembering the Baldwin 

 Expedition, the discomforts we suffered from frozen sleeping 

 bags, the hours spent in warming them, frozen or damp 

 clothing, and the frostbites which were the natural consequence 

 of such a state of affairs, I must admit that, even if it seems 

 a less hardy way of looking at things, I am of the opinion that 

 the comfort of men on the trail as compared with a compara- 

 tively small increase of weight is an important matter which 

 must be taken into serious consideration. 



With a daily ration, properly balanced, some weight can, 

 however, be saved on the food, and a sledge party must be 

 economical in this respect as long as it has strong sledges, 

 a good tent, and more fuel. 



