302 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
flew off, or watching an opportunity to steal some pieces. Besides 
this severe trial of the cook’s temper, more of his time was spent 
in chopping at the dogs than in chopping up the frozen supper. 
We were careful not to feed the dogs until an hour after halting ; 
when that time arrived, their food (commonly frozen seal’s or bear’s 
flesh) was strewed over the snow, and trampled into it, before the 
rush for supper, so as to enable the weak ones to secure an equal 
share with the strong. I think this was the only care we found it 
necessary to bestow upon them. We were, of course, obliged to 
take numberless precautions against them, removing out of their 
reach anything which they could eat or gnaw. 
Dogs are most useful when dispatch is required, or when the 
temperature is so low that it is undesirable to expose more men 
than is absolutely necessary. Two men, with a good team of a 
dozen dogs, can travel with astonishing speed; the men securing 
themselves each night against frost-bite in a small snow-hut or 
burrow, when they can find a sufficient depth of snow to do so, but 
this is by no means always the case on sea-ice at a distance from 
the land. In this manner I made a journey of twenty-five days, 
with fifteen dogs, a driver and an interpreter. We started on the 
17th of February, and accomplished 420 miles; the temperature, 
which was sometimes as low as — 48°, averaged — 30° throughout. 
Snow-huts were built each night, although we were very slow and 
clumsy masons, requiring an hour and a half, instead of from one- 
half to three-quarters of an hour to house ourselves! My dog-driver, 
whose previous experience had taught him what luxuries this mode 
of travelling was capable of, used to sleep warmly enough, with one 
dog at his back and another at his feet! An Esquimaux dog is more 
remarkable for the thicknesss of his fur than for anything else. He 
has a broad head and chest, keen scent, and strong dislike to the 
water. Our largest and best dogs measured twenty-three inches high 
at the shoulders, and weighed about seventy pounds when in fair 
condition. Two dogs require the same weight of food as one man, 
and they will draw a man’s full load for about one-fourth a greater 
distance than a man would. If both man and dogs are but lightly 
laden, the dogs will almost double the distance which the man 
could do. 
I have now completed my brief outline of Arctic sledging opera- 
tions, down to the return of the Fox, the last of the English 
expeditions. 
All the experience gained in that memorable series of voyages 
between 1818 and 1859 has been brought to bear upon the equip- 
