go THE SIEGE OF THE NORTH POLE 



" This general wakefulness made it unnecessary to set 

 a special watch for bears and foxes, which occasionally 

 made a bold raid upon the stores in the sledge, for 

 they had never yet succeeded in approaching us quite 

 noiselessly. 



" In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the cutting cold 

 too soon penetrated the sleeping-sack ; within the tent the 

 temperature sinks from 60° or 65° to below zero, and the 

 body has to be again refreshed with artificial warmth, by 

 motion and hot food. 



" The natural consequences of this state of temperature 

 is a continually increasing sensation of freezing until the 

 morning. During the day the sack has got thoroughly 

 cold on the sledge, and must again be warmed by bodily 

 heat, being frozen into thick folds as hard as iron. Who- 

 ever lies upon these seems to be lying on laths, which 

 towards morning begin to lose their sharpness. One or 

 the other, we keep a bottle of snow about us. All are 

 shivering, scarcely any sleep. For hours together we are 

 in a state of suffocation, the pressure on either side causing 

 a feeling as though the collar-bone was being forced into 

 the chest and the shoulders crushed. Each lies upon his 

 arm (which of course goes to sleep), and is often prevented 

 from breathing by the smell of train-oil proceeding from 

 his neighbour's seal-skin. The breath condenses over the 

 face and upon the sloping tent-side, in long snow-webs, 

 which fall at the slightest movement. 



" The misery of tent-life reaches its maximum during an 

 uninterrupted snowstorm of sometimes three davs 1 duration. 

 So long as this assumes the form of a hurricane, no one can 

 leave the tent without danger of either being suffocated or 

 blown away. These Greenland snowstorms, which carry 

 small stones with them, greatly resemble West Indian 

 hurricanes, only that the sun is completely darkened by 

 the rush of snow. 



