NOTES FROM AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. 95 
parting, for all knew the dangers and risks that must be en- 
countered by the travellers, and felt how unlikely it was that we 
all should meet again. After the departure of the sledge parties, 
we remained thirteen souls on board the ship, including the sick. 
On the 17th April I first noticed drops of watér trickling 
down the face of a dark rock exposed to the full force of the 
sun’s rays. On the 24th, I left the ship in company with Lieut. 
May, taking the dog-sledge and seven dogs. Our instructions 
were to proceed to the southwards as far as Lincoln Bay, and 
endeavour to find a practicable land route in rear of the various 
headlands which descend abruptly to the sea between that point 
and winter-quarters. This survey was very necessary, as in the 
event of the ice in Robeson Channel breaking up and entirely 
detaching from the shore, a land line of communication with 
the ‘Discovery’ was imperative. The temperature at starting 
was — 20°, sufficiently low to give us an adequate idea of the 
misery inseparable from Arctic-sledging. Whilst labouring at 
the sledge, exerting oneself to the extreme limit of human 
endurance, no matter how low the temperature, the perspiration 
pours from one’s body, and all underclothing becomes soaked. 
Whenever a halt occurs this condition of affairs becomes reversed, 
and the wet under-garments become frozen. Such sudden 
changes are very painful to bear. Our little party returned to 
the ship on the last day of the month, having satisfactorily 
carried out the object of its despatch by finding a practicable 
land path to Lincoln Bay. Though this short trip enabled me to 
add very considerably to our acquaintance with the geological 
features of the country, so far as notice of animal-life was con- 
cerned it proved nearly blank. A single Hare, which we shot 
and brought back to the ship for the sick, with a few Lemmings, 
were the only living things that we encountered. 
On the 11th May I again left the ship with the dog-sledge 
and a party under the command of Lieut. Egerton, for the 
purpose of surveying the United States Range of mountains 
lying to the north-west of our winter-quarters. 
I know of no record of travel so monotonous as an Arctic 
sledging journal; and though I have endeavoured to compress 
Ty experiences as far as possible, yet I feel that I owe an 
apology to the readers of ‘The Zoologist’ for the length to which 
these notes have already extended. Day after day the same 
