1876 BEAUMONT'S RETURN JOURNEY. 107 



sick were getting worse steadily ; for the last two days 

 neither Paul nor Jenkins could keep up with the 

 sledge, but crawled along after it, and often kept us 

 waiting, for I would not let them get too far behind. 

 Craig was very bad, but still hobbled along with us. 

 Dobing and Jones were getting stiffer and stiffer, but 

 still pulled their best. Gray and myself were the only 

 sound ones left. The sick scarcely ate anything ; they 

 could not sleep nor lie still. 



' Having left a record at the cairn, and taken forty 

 out. of the eighty complete rations, we started again in 

 the evening, and had not gone ten yards before Paul 

 fell down quite powerless, and from that time until the 

 end he was like one paralysed, his legs were so com- 

 pletely useless to him. Jenkins still crawled along, 

 but his time was drawing near, and on the 7th he took 

 his place alongside Paul on the sledge. We now had 

 to make two journeys a day, taking the provisions and 

 baggage on for half the time and then coming back 

 for the tent and the sick. With great labour we got 

 round Snow Point, but Drift Point was impassable to 

 us, and so we had to go out on the ice. 



4 On the 10th of June we reached Eepulse Harbour 

 depot, the weather having once more relapsed into a 

 steady snow-fall. Feeling the urgent necessity of 

 getting the sick under medical care, for both Paul and 

 Jenkins were alarmingly weak and short of breath, I 

 read the records carefully, and having considered the 

 matter in all its bearings to the very best of my ability, 

 I determined to cross over to the " Alert." Everything 

 was to be sacrificed to getting over quickly; so we 

 again made up a depot and left everything we could 



