V E IilLOUS RETUR N. 
193 
robes, in a half-reclining posture; other skins and 
blanket-bags were thrown above them; and the whole 
litter was lashed together so as to allow but a single 
opening opposite the mouth for breathing. 
This necessary work cost us a great deal of time and 
effort; but it was essential to the lives of the sufferers. 
It took us no less than four hours to strip and refresh 
them, and then to embale them in the manner I have 
described. Few of us escaped without frost-bitten 
fingers: the thermometer was at 5o°.6 below zero, and 
a slight wind added to the severity of the cold. 
It was completed at last, however; all hands stood 
round; and, after repeating a short prayer, we set out 
on our retreat. It was fortunate indeed that we were 
not inexperienced in sledging over the ice. A great 
part of our track lay among a succession of hummocks; 
some of them extending in long lines, fifteen and 
twenty feet high, and so uniformly steep that we had 
to turn them by a considerable deviation from our 
direct course; others that we forced our way through, 
far above our heads in height, lying in parallel ridges, 
with the space between too narrow for the sledge to be 
lowered into it safely, and yet not wide enough for the 
runners to cross without the aid of ropes to stay them. 
These spaces too were generally choked with light 
snow, hiding the openings between the ice-fragments. 
They were fearful traps to disengage a limb from, for 
every man knew that a fracture or a sprain even would 
cost him his life. Besides all this, the sledge was top- 
heavy with its load: the maimed men could not bear 
Vol. I.—IS 
