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MY FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY 



By seven o'clock the sky was beginning to 

 lighten, and we made our first halt at the famous 

 ten-mile point Parkavik (" the meeting-place "). 

 There the men disentangled the dogs, which by 

 continual crossing over had plaited their traces 

 together like the strings of a maypole ; and I thought 



well to drink some hot coffee. The coffee was 

 not hot, although it was in a stone jar wrapped in 

 a dogskin, but it was drinkable, which is more than 

 I can say for it a few hours later, when it had 

 assumed the form of ice-cream not particularly 

 mpting under the circumstances. The drivers 

 id not want any : they had taken a good draught 

 of water and a lump of frozen seal meat before 

 starting, in addition to the breakfast of bread and 

 meat and weak tea that I had given them, so they 

 were content to wait a while. During their tedious 

 unravelling of the knotted harness the other sledges 

 began to come up, and soon the whole fourteen 

 were assembled at Parkavik. We waited until all 

 were ready, for the very simple reason that if we 

 had started no exertions could have kept the other 

 teams still, and so it came about that the starting 

 again was by way of being an imposing spectacle. 

 My sledge, with the drivers swelling with pride, 

 headed the procession along the frozen fiord, and 

 the others followed at proper intervals. 



Not the least interesting part of this unique sight 

 was the shadow : the sun was just up, and there was 

 a marvellous string of spider-legged dogs and top- 

 heavy sledges and weird, thin men sharply outlined 

 on the pink snow. Travelling was rather more 

 pleasant in the sunshine ; the air felt warmer, in spite 

 of the forty-three degrees of frost by my Fahrenheit 



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