MY FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY 



the driver's wife, and his idea was that she should sit 

 tight and not feel the cold. The idea was, no doubt, 

 an excellent one; but it had the disadvantage of 

 boxing the lady up in the dark and depriving her of 

 all view of the outside world, and consequently she 

 was unable to take care of herself properly. We 

 came to a boulder-strewn beach, all ice covered, one 

 of those places where the dogs try to go fast and are 

 constantly getting their traces caught round points of 

 ice. Off went the dogs with a rush, and the man 

 after them to keep them straight. The sledge had 

 nobody to guide it; it ran up the side of a great 

 hummock and over it turned. My view of the 

 proceedings from twenty yards behind was of a 

 sledge upsetting and a heavily-padded and very 

 surprised-looking Eskimo matron being somersaulted 

 out of the top of her canvas house. She sat on the 

 hard snow, gazing ruefully at her sledge as it bumped 

 along at a good ten miles an hour ; but she managed 

 to collect her wits sufficiently to pick herself up and 

 make a flying leap on to my sledge as it passed her. 

 A mile further on we came on her husband sitting 

 on a lump of ice and puffing unconcernedly at his 

 pipe, while his dogs enjoyed a rest after their scamper. 

 Hebron is admirably placed for a sensational 

 arrival. The track turns sharply round a jutting 

 point of land and then runs for a straight mile and 

 a half over the frozen harbour to the Mission station ; 

 consequently the keen-eyed people saw us as soon as 

 we came round the point, and a good many of the 

 men and boys started over the ice at a run to meet 

 us, while the rest of the population collected on the 

 slope in front of the village to watch. 



From our point of view it was a relief to see the 



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