A HARD STRUGGLE 2ii 



find no error, and cannot think otherwise than that we 

 are about right. Still it seems remarkable that we have 

 not yet seen any signs of land. lo p.m., +1.4" Fahr. 

 (-17° C). 



" F"riday, May 17th. +12.4° Fahr. (— io.9°C.); mini- 

 mum, — 19° C. To-day is the 'Seventeenth of May' — 

 Constitution-day. I felt quite certain that by to-day, at 

 any rate, we should have been on land somewhere or 

 other, but fate wills otherwise ; we have not even seen a 

 sign of it yet. Alas! here I lie in the bag, dreaming day- 

 dreams and thinking of all the rejoicings at home, of the 

 children's processions and the undulating mass of people 

 at this moment in the streets. How welcome a sio-ht to 

 see the flags, with their red bunting, waving in the blue 

 spring atmosphere, and the sun shining through the 

 delicate young green of the leaves. And here we are in 

 drifting ice, not knowing exactly where we are, uncertain 

 as to our distance from an unknown land, where we hope 

 to find means of sustaining life and thence carve our way 

 on towards home, with two teams of doo-s whose numbers 

 and strength diminish day by day, with ice and water 

 between us and our goal which may cause us untold 

 trouble, with sledges which now, at an)^ rate, are too heavy 

 for our own powers. We press laboriously onward mile 

 by mile ; and meanwhile, perhaps, the drift of the ice is 

 carrying us westward out to sea, beyond the land we are 

 striving for. A toilsome life, undeniably, but there will 

 be an end to it some time ; some time we shall reach it, 



