230 
PROGRESS OF THE PARTY. 
long reach of level travel. We then made a better . 
rate; and our days’ marches were such as to carry us 
by the 4th of May nearly to the glacier. 
“ This progress, however, was dearly earned. As 
early as the 3d of May, the winter’s scurvy reap¬ 
peared painfully among our party. As we struggled 
through the snow along the Greenland coast we sank 
up to our middle, and the dogs, floundering about, were 
so buried as to preclude any attempts at hauling. This 
excessive snow-deposit seemed to be due to the pre¬ 
cipitation of cold condensing wind suddenty wafted 
from the neighboring glacier; for at Rensselaer Har¬ 
bor we had only four inches of general snow depth. 
It obliged us to unload our sledges again, and carry 
their cargo, a labor .which resulted in dropsical swell¬ 
ings with painful prostration. Here three of the party 
were taken with snow-blindness, and George Stephen¬ 
son had to be condemned as unfit for travel altogether, 
on account of chesbsymptoms accompanying Ins scor¬ 
butic troubles. On the 4tli, Thomas Hickey also gave 
in, although not quite disabled for labor at the track¬ 
lines. 
“ Perhaps we would still have got on; but, to crown 
all, we found that the bears had effected an entrance 
into our pemmican-casks, and destroyed our chances of 
reinforcing our provisions at the several caches. This 
great calamity was certainly inevitable; for it is simple 
justice to the officers under whose charge the provision- 
depots were constructed, to say that no means in their 
power could have prevented the result. The pemmican 
