i 9 o2] DESCRIPTION OF THE DOG TEAM 13 



'Vic' were nice, pleasant-mannered dogs, and good average 

 pullers. ' Brownie ' was a very handsome animal, but rather 

 light in build. He was charming as a pet, but less gifted as a 

 sledge-puller, and always appealed to one as being a little too 

 refined and ladylike for the hardest work ; nor did he ever lose 

 a chance of utilising his pleasing appearance and persuasive 

 ways to lighten his afflictions. 



'Wolf was the most hopelessly ill-tempered animal; his 

 character seemed to possess no redeeming virtue. Every 

 advance was met with the same sullen, irreconcilable humour, 

 and the whip alone was capable of reducing him to subjection. 

 On the principle that you can lead a horse to the water but you 

 cannot make him drink, ' Wolf ' had evidently decided that we 

 might lead him to the traces but nothing could make him pull ; 

 and, as a consequence, from start to finish no efforts of ours 

 could make him do even a reasonable share of his work. We 

 should have saved ourselves much trouble and annoyance had 

 we left him behind in the first place. 



To the effort to swell the numbers of our team Bemacchi 

 had sacrificed his own property, ' Joe,' and poor ' Joe ' had a 

 history. He had been born in the Antarctic Regions at Cape 

 Adare ; later in life he had learnt to behave himself with 

 proper decorum in a London drawing-room ; and now he had 

 returned, no doubt much against his will, to finish his career 

 in the land of his birth. He was a very light dog, with a 

 deceptively thick coat; much pulling could not be expected 

 from his weight, and he certainly gave but little. 



Such was our team as regards the dog element ; but a word 

 may be added about the three of the other sex, whom at first I 

 was very reluctant to take. ' Nell ' was a pretty black animal 

 with a snappish little temper but attractive ways ; ' Blanco,' so 

 called because she ought to have been white, had few attrac- 

 tions, and was of such little use that she was sent back with the 

 supporting party ; and poor ' Grannie ' was old and toothless, 

 but lived and died game on the traces. 



Whilst the loads for this dog team had been heavy from 

 the start, it had not been proposed to bring them up to full 



