EQUIPMENT. 
217 
two officers who can help Ohlsen. This is our force, 
four able-bodied and six disabled to keep the brig: the 
commander and seven men, scarcely better upon the 
average, out upon the ice. Eighteen souls, thank God! 
certainly not eighteen bodies!- 
“ I am going this time to follow the ice-belt (Eis-fod) 
to the Great Glacier of Humboldt, and there load up 
with pemmican from our cache of last October. From 
this point I expect to stretch along the face of the 
glacier inclining to the west of north, and make an 
attempt to cross the ice to the American side. Once 
on smooth ice, near this shore, I may pass to the west, 
and enter the large indentation whose existence I can 
infer with nearly positive certainty. In this I may 
find an outlet, and determine the state of things 
beyond the ice-clogged area of this bay. 
“I take with me pemmican and bread and tea, a 
canvas tent, five feet by six, and two sleeping-bags of 
reindeer-skin. The sledge has been built on board by 
Mr. Ohlsen. It is very light, of hickory, and but nine 
feet long. Our kitchen is a soup-kettle for melting 
snow and making tea, arranged so as to boil with 
either lard or spirits.” 
The pattern of the tent was suggested by our expe¬ 
rience during the fall journeys. The greatest discom¬ 
fort of the Arctic traveller when camping out is from 
the congealed moisture of the breath forming long 
feathers of frost against the low shelving roof of the 
tent within a few inches of his face. The remedy 
which I adopted was to run the tent-poles through 
