THE LABOURS OF SISYPHUS. 183 



though none are recorded over three miles in length. On the 18th, after eleven hours' 

 actual labour, "requiring 1 , for the most part/' says Parry, "our whole strength to be 

 exerted, we had travelled over a space not exceeding four miles, of which only two were 

 made good in a NNW. direction." The men, exhausted by their day's work, were 

 treated to a little extra hot cocoa. They were also put into good spirits by having killed 

 a small seal, which next night gave them an excellent supper. " The meat of these young 

 animals is tender/' says Parry, "and free from oiliness; but it certainly has a smell and 

 a look which would not have been agreeable to any but very hungry people like ourselves." 

 They utilised its blubber for fuel, after the Esquimaux manner. Some few birds rotges, 

 dovekies, looms, mollemucks, and ivory and Ross gulls were very occasionally seen and 

 shot ; and one day a couple of small flies were found upon the ice, which to them was an 

 event of ridiculous importance, and as so is recorded in the narrative. This at least gives 

 an insight into the terrible monotony of their existence at this period. 



Hitherto they had been favoured by the wind, but on the 19fch a northerly breeze 

 set in, which, while it was the means of opening several lanes of water, counterbalanced 

 this advantage by drifting the ice and, by consequence, the party on it in a southerly 

 direction. Great was their mortification at noon on the 20th to find by observation that 

 since the same hour on the 17th they had only advanced five miles in a northerly direction. 

 Although they had apparently made good progress in the intervening time, their efforts 

 had been nullified by the ice drifting southward. These facts were carefully concealed 

 from the men. On the 21st the floe broke under the weight of the boats and sledges; 

 some of the men went completely through, and one of them was only held up by his drag- 

 belt being attached to a sledge which happened to be on firmer ice. This day they made 

 nearly seven miles by travelling, and drifted back four and a half; or, in other words, their 

 observation of the latitude showed them to have, in reality, advanced only two miles and 

 a quarter. Under these circumstances we can understand their anxiety when, after a 

 calm of short duration, fog-banks were observed rising both to the southward and north. 

 Which would prevail ? That from the south came first, with a light air from that quarter, 

 but soon after the weather became perfectly calm and clear. Next night they made the 

 best travelling during the expedition. The floes were large and tolerably level, and some 

 good lanes of water occurring, they believed that they must have advanced ten or eleven 

 miles in a NNE. direction, having traversed a distance of about seventeen. They had 

 done so on the ice; but the ice itself had drifted so much to the southward that they 

 found, to their great disappointment and disgust, by observation of the latitude, that they 

 had only made four miles. Still worse was it on the 26th, when they found themselves 

 in latitude 82 C 40' 23"; since their last observation on the 22nd they had, though travelling 

 almost incessantly, lost by drift no less than thirteen miles and a half, and were more than 

 three miles to the southward of their earlier position. The men unsuspiciously remarked 

 that they "were a long time getting to this 83!" ignorant of the fact that the current 

 was now taking them faster south than all their labom-s advanced them north. Unlike 

 Sisyphus, they were but exerting an honourable ambition, but like him they were rolling 

 a stone up-hill which constantly rolled back again. The eighty-third parallel had been 

 for some time past the limit of Parry's ambition, but although he never reached it, 



