130 
CAPE WILLIAM WOOD. 
September. The tides and frosts together liad coated 
it with ice as smooth as satin, and this glossy covering 
made it an excellent road. The cliffs discharged fewer 
fragments in our path, and the rocks of our last jour¬ 
ney’s experience were now fringed with icicles. I saw 
with great pleasure that this ice-belt would serve as a 
highway for our future operations. 
The nights which followed were not so bad as one 
would suppose from the saturated condition of our 
equipment. Evaporation is not so inappreciable in this 
Arctic region as some theorists imagine. By alter¬ 
nately exposing the tent and furs to the air, and beat¬ 
ing the ice out of them, we dried them enough to per¬ 
mit sleep. The dogs slept in the tent with us, giving 
it warmth as well as fragrance. What perfumes of 
nature are lost at home upon our ungrateful senses! 
How we relished the companionship ! 
We had averaged twenty miles a day since leaving 
the brig, and were within a short march of the cape 
which I have named William Wood, when a broad 
chasm brought us to a halt. It was in vain that we 
worked out to seaward, or dived into the shoreward 
recesses of the bay: the ice everywhere presented the 
same impassable fissures. We had no alternative but 
to retrace our steps and seek among the bergs some 
place of security. We found a camp for the night on 
the old floe-ices to the westward, gaining them some 
time after the darkness had closed in. 
On the morning of the 15th, about two hours be¬ 
fore the late sunrise, as I was preparing to climb a 
