FIELD WOEK OF THE PEAEY ARCTIC CLUB, 1898-1902. 441 



the wind and drift full in our faces and violent, making our progress 

 from here to Cape Norton Shaw along- the ice-foot very trying. 



The going from here across Scoresby and Richardson ])ays was not 

 worse than the year before; and from Cape Wilkes to Cape Lawrence 

 the same as we had always found it. These two marches were made 

 in clear but bitterly windy weather. 



Another severe southerl}^ gale held us prisoners at Cape Lawrence 

 for a day. The 20th was an equally. cruel day, with wind still savage 

 in its strength, but the question of food for mj^ dogs gave me no choice 

 but to try to advance. At the end of four hours we were forced to 

 burrow^ into a snow bank for shelter, where we remained till the next 

 morning. 



Ln three more marches we reached Cape von Buch. Two more days 

 of good weather brought us to a point a few miles north of Cape 

 Defosse. Here we were stopped by another furious gale with drifting 

 snow, which prisoned us for two nights and a day*. 



The wind was still bitter in our faces when w^e again got underway 

 the morning of the 2Tth. The ice-foot became worse and worse up to 

 Cape Cracroft, where we were forced down into the narrow tidal joint 

 at the base of the ice-foot; this path was a very narrow and tortuous 

 one, frequently interrupted, and was extremel}^ trying on men and 

 sledges. Cape Lieber was reached on this march. At this camp the 

 wind blew savagel}^ all night, and in the morning I waited for it to 

 moderate before attempting to cross Lady Franklin Ba}'. 



While thus waiting, the returning Eskimos of the first and second 

 divisions came in. They brought the very welcome news of the killing 

 of 21 musk oxen close to Conger. They also reported the wind out 

 in the ba}^ as less severe than at the cape. 



I immediately got underway and reached Conger just before mid- 

 night of the 28th, twenty-four days from Etah, during six of which I 

 was held up by storms. 



The first division had arrived four da3's and the second two da^'s 

 earlier. During this journey there had been the usual annoying delays 

 of broken sledges, and I had lost numbers of dogs. 



The process of breaking in the tendons and nuiscles of my feet to 

 their new relations, and the callousing of the amputation scars, in this, 

 the first serious demand upon them, had been disagreeable, but was, I 

 believed, final and complete. 1 felt that I had no reason to complain. 



The herd of musk oxen so opportunely secured near the station, 

 with the meat cached here the previous spring, furnished the means 

 to feed and rest my dogs. A period of thick w(^ather followed my 

 arrival at Conger, and not until April 2 could I send back the Eski- 

 mos of my division. 



On leaving Etah I had not decided whether I should go north from 

 Conger via Cape Hecla, or take the route along the northwest coast of 



