SNOWSTORM AND MISFORTUNE. 95 



and our relief was great when we found everything in good order. 

 They had stood the storm well, it appeared, and both the teams 

 were lying in a mass, each in its place. We gave them an extra 

 ration, disentangled the traces, and after doing all we could for 

 them, turned in again. About five o'clock the mate was out 

 again. The wind had changed a little by then, and the snow had 

 drifted so much that my team were only just able to keep on the 

 top of it. Close by was a large over-hanging drift more than six 

 feet high. They had mounted and mounted, and now had literally 

 got to the end of their tether. 



' Sultan,' who had a perfect mania for entangling his trace, was 

 tied up a little way from the others. Of him we saw not a sign 

 he must be many feet under the snow. We fetched spades and 

 dug like navvies ; worked for two or three hours with the sweat 

 of our brows, but all our efforts were in vain. For every spade- 

 ful of snow we shovelled away at least as much fell in again 

 it was an endless and fruitless task. Hard as it was to lose a 

 dog in this way we were obliged to give up, and consoled our- 

 selves by the certainty that, had we found him, he would have 

 been dead long ago. We ended our work and let the snow keep 

 its prey ; but we took the precaution to move the other dogs to a 

 place which I thought fairly sheltered against drift before going 

 back to our warm tent. 



The night that followed I shall never forget. I have experienced 

 many a stormy night in the polar regions, but not many like this. 

 It seemed almost as if the end of the world had come ! 



In the morning when the mate tried to go out of the hut he 

 found that we were entirely snowed up, and he had to break 

 through the roof of the porch and shovel a way out from there. 



Over the whole of the large hollow in which the tent stood lay 

 an even sheet of snow, several yards deep. Of the great stack of 

 meat, about nine feet high, we saw not a trace. We knew our 

 sledges were standing somewhere near it, but we were not quite 

 sure of the place, and it had really never occurred to us to take 

 their bearings. 



Worst of all, however, was that my dogs were quite snowed 

 down. We saw a little of the backs of four of them, but of 



