ARCTIC SLEDGE-TRAVELLING. 297 
twelve miles. The second was a despatch journey, and it shows how 
rapidly ground can be got over with a tolerably light sledge, under 
somewhat favourable circumstances ; and it is a feat which the sailor, 
who is not generally credited with good marching powers, may justly 
point to with pride: throughout this journey the daily march aver- 
aged the astonishing distance of twenty miles. 
These facts afford the strongest proof of the suitability of our 
travelling equipments. 
In any comparisons which we may make between these and any 
other marches, we should bear in mind that this Arctic work is not 
merely marching, but that a sledge, often heavily laden, has to be 
dragged the entire distance. 
The provisions and the clothing found to be most suitable may 
now be briefly described. 
Tea, chocolate, biscuit, preserved meat and pemmican are com- 
monly used. Pemmican is a description of preserved meat used by 
the Indians of North America, from whom it has been copied. It is 
a preparation of beef, whereby all that is fluid is evaporated over a 
wood fire; the fibre is then pounded up, and mixed with an equal 
weight of melted beef fat; no salt or preservative of any kind is 
used; and no more concentrated food for working-men in a cold 
climate is known. 
With chocolate, biscuit, and a little warmed-up pemmican, the 
traveller makes a good breakfast; a few ounces of specially prepared 
bacon, almost free from salt, some biscuit, and a mouthful of grog, 
forms his hasty luncheon on the march; and, on encamping, he has 
his supper of warmed pemmican, or other preserved meat, and tea. 
Rum is the spirit used in the Navy, and, therefore, in our Arctic: 
ships. Ifthe men were not accustomed to the use of spirits I think 
that, except on special occasions when a stimulant is desirable, they 
would be even better without it, as an equal weight of some nutri- 
tious food might then be carried instead of it ; however, the ration of 
rum is very small. 
This simple dietary is invariable, except when the party is so for- 
tunate as to procure game; and then the awkward question crops up, 
of fuel wherewith to cook it. We are at a disadvantage with those 
hardy men who are content to cook their meat with frost; although 
a sandwich of frozen bear’s blubber and biscuit is palatable enough, 
and I think most of the gentlemen in this room would agree with me 
if they were fairly educated up to it by a few days’ sledging in the 
month of March. 
All our cooking is done with lamps, the fuel being either spirits 
