THE GERMAN EXPEDITION (1870) 93 



other hand, does not save one from the steady burning 

 pain, which acts like needle-pricks. Opening the eye for 

 a moment is not to be thought of. The blind are obliged 

 to pull with the others, as the laden sledge cannot be 

 moved but by our united strength. 



" As a rule, we break up about 5 a.m. The thin black 

 coffee is taken with some ice-cold bread-dust, which 

 effectually destroys all its warming properties, mixed 

 into it like a mash, and then follows laborious packing 

 up of the clothes, in order to be prepared for all weathers. 

 The frozen boots must first be thawed with the hands, 

 and the folds taken out, the tent freed from snow, and 

 beaten until pliable. The sleeping-sack receives the same 

 treatment, which, as a sign of our disgust and its daily 

 increasing weight from the ice, we named ' the Walrus. 1 



" The soaked seal-skin clothing freezes at once in the 

 air, and damp condenses on the hair in frost-blossoms. 

 One or the other rubs his face with scraped snow to 

 refresh his eyes — a novel kind of washing, in default 

 of water, though with the slightest breath of wind his 

 hands are in danger of freezing. After every snowstorm, 

 tent and sledge have to be dug out, and the contents 

 cleaned with difficulty. 



" All this business occupies about two hours, when the 

 traces are taken up with great satisfaction, as a long- 

 looked-for release from the pain of the nightly couch. 

 The sledge is loosened from its frozen position, and the 

 journey continued, which, after twenty-three days, brought 

 us to 77° of latitude, the most northerly point ever 

 reached on the east coast of Greenland." 



The coast along which this sledge-journey was made 

 was found to be much broken up, and the opinion was 

 formed that the land might possibly resolve itself into a 

 group of islands. 



The ice having broken up, the Germania left its winter 



