342 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



Then night fell again, and once more we had to camp on the 

 ice, trusting to luck that it would hold. We dared not eat 

 pemmican any longer for fear of thirst, but lived on a purely 

 vegetarian diet, and our meal that night, after a day of hard, 

 incessant toil, was again chocolate, crackers, and a handful of 

 snow. 



But while we were eating this very frugal meal the thought 

 occurred to one of us that the candle we had burning in the 

 tent would do for heating as well as for lighting, and to each 

 man's ration was added a candle. We filled our bowl with 

 snow and began to melt it over the small flame, but it took us 

 a whole hour to get a cupful of water. The experiment was 

 repeated on the morning of Sunday, the 27th, and we started at 

 7 A.M., wandering westward over the ice, toiling as never before, 

 thirsty and cold. But at last our trials were at an end, for at 

 11.30 we saw land indisputably and distinctly looming through 

 the fog. We soon reached it, and the fire we made the instant 

 we were on firm ground could have been seen far and wide. 

 And there we sat, warming ourselves and drying our wet 

 clothes or watching the soaring flames, while our wet sleeping 

 gear was hung as close to the flames as we dared, and all the 

 dogs lay curled up round us. After drinking a barrel of tea we 

 started afresh, but other disappointments were in store for us 

 before we had gone two miles. There was something about the 

 lay of the country which roused my apprehension that we were 

 too far south, and before long it was only too evident that my 

 worst fears were justified. When the fog cleared we saw a 

 point of land to the north of us, at least fifteen miles distant, 

 and it was there we should have been instead of where we now 

 were. We felt so miserable at this discovery that we camped 

 at once, at 3 P.M., and tried to drown our sorrow in pemmican 

 and more tea, as our thirst was not yet satisfied. 



With the lifting of the fog the temperature became colder, 

 and during the night it was as low as 18 C. That at any 

 rate gave us a ray of hope, as it would help us to travel faster, 

 and we began talking of the immense distance which we 

 expected to cover on the next day. 



But travelling in the Arctic is always full of disappointments, 

 and we made no startling travelling records during the follow- 

 ing days. One day was spent in wandering round the bay we 



