1902] DISCOMFORTS OF SLEDGE-TRAVELLING 347 



unattractive in the pack • timid, cunning, and uncertain in 

 temper, they possessed all the sneaking distrust of the wild 

 animal and none of the good humour and boisterous affection 

 which were so marked a characteristic of the rest. And all 

 this mixed team had come to us unnamed and unknown ; we 

 had not a scrap of their history, nor could we tell within a 

 thousand miles whence they came. But what mattered that ? 

 They had now good Anglo-Saxon names, and their value lay 

 in their future, and not in their past. 



One fact only had been borne by word of mouth — the king 

 and ruler of our pack had held the same high office when he 

 had travelled amongst 400 of his kind. And well he might. 

 His new name of ' Nigger ' wholly failed to convey the grandeur 

 of his nature. In peace he was gentle and dignified, but in 

 war, as we knew to our cost, he was swift and terrible. 



When we opened our spring campaign with the dogs in 

 1902, the original team had sadly diminished. One had been 

 lost with poor Vince in the disaster of March ; two had been 

 murdered under our very eyes, and two others had come to an 

 untimely end during the winter. 



To what remained, for our southern journey, were added 

 the three ladies and poor 'Joe,' who had been the private 

 property of Mr. Bernacchi, bringing their number up to a total 

 of nineteen, of which all but one, who was dismissed at an 

 early period in the journey, left their bones on the great 

 southern plains. This in brief is the history of our dogs, but 

 of the circumstances in which they met their end I shall speak 

 at greater length. 



A mere description, such as I have given, of the organisation 

 of sledge-travelling and the paraphernalia which accompanies 

 a sledge party can give no idea of the actual life of the sledge- 

 traveller or the difficulties and hardships which he has to face, 

 so that it is necessary to point out wherein the latter lie. The 

 worst time for sledging is the coldest time ; not so much on 

 account of the cold itself as on account of the effects produced 

 by the cold. The most troublesome of these is the absence 

 of evaporation. Very cold air will only contain the minutest 



