I9II] STATE OF THE SLEEPING-BAGS 73 
Ponting said he had seen the same look on some Russian 
prisoners' faces at Mukden. I just tumbled into my dry, 
warm blankets. I expect it was as near an approach to 
bliss as a man can get on this earth. 
Sleeping-bags, (Written August 3, 1912). — The life of 
a man on such a journey as this depends mainly upon the 
life of his sleeping-bag. We all three of us took eiderdown 
linings. Bill's bag proved really too small to take his 
eiderdown, and on the return journey his bag split down 
the seams to an alarming extent, letting in the cold air. 
Latterly in this journey it was by no means an uncommon 
experience for us to take over an hour in getting into our 
bags. One night I especially remember when Bill had 
practically given up all hope of getting his head into his. 
He finally cut off the flaps of his eiderdown, and with 
Birdie on one side and myself on the other we managed to 
lever the lid of the head of the bag open and gradually he 
got his head into it, I made a great mistake in taking a 
* large-sized ' bag — though it was a small one. What a 
man really wants is a large * middle-sized ' bag. The last 
fortnight, whenever the temperature was very low, I 
never thawed out the parts of my bag which were not 
pressing tight up against my body. I have forgotten 
what Bill's and Birdie's bags weighed when we got in. 
Mine (bag and eiderdown) was 45 lbs., personal gear 
10 lbs. When we started that bag was about 18 lbs. : 
the accumulation of ice was therefore 27 lbs. 
Birdie's bag just fitted him beautifully, though perhaps 
it would have been a little small with an eiderdown inside. 
As I understand from Atkinson, Birdie had undoubtedly a 
