AN ICE TRAMP. 
229 
miles ; and even then were at least a mile from the 
beach. 
"At one portion of our route, the ice had the crushed 
sugar character ; the lumps varying in size from a 
small cantaloupe to a water-melon, but hard as frozen 
water at zero ought to be. Over this stuff we walked 
in tiptoe style — and a very miserable style it was. 
"At another place, for a mile and a half, we trod on 
the fractured angles of upturned ice. Call these curb- 
stones ; toss them in mad confusion, always taking care 
that their edges shall be uppermost; dust them over 
with flour cooled down to zero ; and set a poor wretch 
loose, in the centre of a misty circle, to try for a path- 
way over them to the shore ! 
"At another place, break-water stones, great quarried 
masses of ice, let you up and down, but down oftener 
than up. At another time, you travel over rounded 
dunes of old seasoned hummock, covered with slippery 
glaze. Again, it is over snow, recent and soft, or snow, 
recent and sufficiently crusty to bear you five paces 
and let you through the sixth — a trial alike to temper 
and legs. 
"At last, to crown the delicim of our Arctic walk, 
we come to a long meadow of recent ice, just enough 
covered with snow to keep you from slipping, and just 
thin enough to make it elastic as a Polka floor. Over 
this, with a fine bracing air, every nerve tingling with 
the exercise, and the hoary rime whitening your beard, 
you walk with a delightful sense of ease and enjoy- 
ment. 
" One of my attendants had both ears frost-bitten ; 
the whole external cartilage [Pinna) was of tallow, 
jaundiced. Snow-rubbing set him right. I have or- 
dered th^e men to take ear-rings from their ears. Wil- 
