PARRY'S EXPEDITION (1827) 7 



the clothes, each man alternately taking this duty 

 for one hour. We then concluded our day with 

 prayers, and having put on our fur dresses, lay down 

 to sleep with a degree of comfort, which perhaps few 

 persons would imagine possible under such circum- 

 stances ; our chief inconvenience being, that we were 

 somewhat pinched for room, and therefore obliged to 

 stow rather closer than was quite agreeable. The tempera- 

 ture, while we slept, was usually from 36° to 45°, according 

 to the state of the external atmosphere ; but on one or 

 two occasions, in calm and warm weather, it rose as high 

 as 60° to 66°, obliging us to throw off a part of our fur 

 dress. After we had slept seven hours, the man appointed 

 to boil the cocoa roused us, when it was readv, by the 

 sound of a bugle, when we commenced our day in the 

 maimer before described. 



" Our allowance of provisions for each man per day was 

 as follows : — 



" Biscuit, 10 oz. ; pemmican, 9 oz. ; sweetened cocoa- 

 powder, 1 oz. to make 1 pint ; rum, 1 gill ; tobacco, 

 3 oz. per week. 



" Our fuel consisted entirely of spirits of wine, of which 

 2 pints formed our daily allowance, the cocoa being cooked 

 in an iron boiler over a shallow iron lamp, with seven 

 wicks ; a simple apparatus, which answered our purpose 

 remarkably well. We usually found 1 pint of spirits of 

 wine sufficient for preparing our breakfast — that is, for 

 heating 28 pints of water, though it always commenced 

 from the temperature of 32°." 



They set off on their first journey over the ice on 24th 

 June. Instead of the fine level floes they expected, they 

 found the ice consisting of pieces of small extent and very 

 rugged, obliging them to make three journeys, and some- 

 times four, with the boats and baggage, and to launch 

 several times across narrow pools of water. They ex- 



