BY SLEDGE AND KAYAK 281 



So on we went forward ; and day after day we were 

 going through exactly the same toil, in the same heavy 

 snow, in which the sledges stuck fast ceaselessly. Dogs 

 and men did their best, but with little effect, and in ad- 

 dition we began to be uneasy as to our means of sub- 

 sistence. The dogs' rations were reduced to a minimum, 

 to enable us to keep life going as long as possible. We 

 were hungry and toil-worn from morning to night and 

 from night to morning, all five of us. We determined to 

 shoot whatever came in our way, even gulls and fulmars; 

 but now, of course, none of this game ever came within 

 range. 



The lanes o^rew worse and worse, filled sfenerallv with 

 slush and brash. We were often compelled to go long 

 distances over nothing but small pieces, where one went 

 through continually. On June i8th "a strong wind from 

 the west (magnetic) sprang up, which tears and rattles at 

 the tent. We are going back, I suppose, whence we came, 

 only farther north perhaps. So we are buffeted by wind 

 and current, and so it will go on, perhaps, the whole sum- 

 mer throuo'h, without our beino- able to master it." A 

 meridian altitude that day made us in 82"" 19' N., so we 

 had come down again a little. I saw and shot a couple of 

 fulmars and a Hriinnich's guillemot [Uria bri(jiuichii),?i\\(\. 

 these eked out our rations; but, to our distress, I fired at a 

 couple of seals in the lanes and missed my mark. How 

 we wished we could get hold of such a prize ! " iNleanwhile 

 there is a good deal of life here now," I write on June 20th. 



