THE VOYAGE OVER THE PACK ICE 213 



48 fathoms and found no bottom, the depth is increasing 

 rapidly. Lat. 71 14' N. 



Thursday, April 4. The morning was fine when we woke up 

 for what we hoped would be easy travelling over extensive old 

 floes. We cooked our breakfast hurriedly, and in a very short 

 time we were ready to march. But the ice was only good for 



ENTERING A BELT OF HEAVY RUBBLE ICE. 



three hundred yards, and then it became worse than ever. 

 First we had to break a road with our pickaxes through a very 

 bad piece of country, then we wandered towards the east, 

 following a drift, and then to the west, following another. 

 Backwards and forwards we cruised, trying to find a road, 

 using the pickaxes and shovels continuously, hammering at the 

 ice to make a comparatively level road, while every now and 

 then we sat down on our sledges and cursed our bad luck. We 

 have had worse ice than to-day, but we had never started with 

 such high hopes, and our disappointment was correspondingly 

 greater when we saw what was before us. 



The ice we travelled over was very strange. It was broken, 

 but not piled up ; only at long intervals could we find a piece 

 of ice high enough to crawl up on and see something ahead. 

 We travelled along the skirts of an extensive body of " old ice," 

 only about two miles distant from where we were, but the ice 

 was so bad between us and the old ice that we dared not 



