THE ARCTIC AND THE ANTARCTIC 51 



I could scarcely speak. Upon making this known to 

 my companions a brief halt was made, the sledges were 

 turned upon edge to form a windbreak, oil-stoves 

 lighted, and kettles of snow melted for drinking water. 

 I do not remember that I have ever tasted anything 

 quite so good and refreshing as that water. It 

 quenched my thirst, rested me, and imbued me with 

 fresh ambition. Unmelted snow rather increases than 

 diminishes thirst, and it is not safe to eat it. Travel 

 for long periods without a halt through the frozen 

 Arctic wilds is not unlike travel over the desert. When 

 one is subjected to hard physical exercise, which is 

 generally the case, suffering from thirst is unavoidable, 

 with very frequently no opportunity to melt snow or 

 ice, the only means of quenching it. 



Here we came upon some fresh komatik' tracks 

 running to the southward, and Eiseeyou and his kooner, 

 after a consultation, left us, to follow them, as they 

 believed them to be the sledges of Murphy, the 

 boatswain, and his Eskimos on a trading expedi- 

 tion to Inglefield Gulf, and Eiseeyou had fox- skins to 

 barter. 



Now our trail was up a gradual incline for several 

 miles. Travelling was exceedingly dangerous here, with 

 innumerable cracks and crevasses, most of them so 

 deep that one could not see the bottom of them, and to 

 fall into one would result in certain death. On crawling 

 upon hands and knees to the edge of several of them 

 to peer into the dark depths I was seized with 

 momentary panic. Many of the crevasses were under- 

 mined, with an upper shell that would doubtless have 

 broken had we ventured upon it. The danger of this 

 to inexperienced men is an ever-present one. Eskimos, 



