324 
A VOYAGE TO SFITZBEBGEN. 
should happen that a steamer did get caught in the 
ice here, she would naturally drift south, at the rate of 
about six miles each day, that being the rate at which 
the ice fields move during the year. 
Another difficulty to be anticipated on this Swedish 
journey. The reindeer, tractable at all times and 
easily managed by their Lapland keepers, may in some 
gale of wind prove untractable, and it is possible the 
whole may become separated, or they may drift away 
on the broken fields of ice. Such a loss is hardly to 
be endured. In that case two boats will be discarded 
as incumbrances no longer of service, and their for¬ 
tune will be staked on the remaining and smallest of 
the three. The deer, we learned, were suffering from 
the journey, and two out of the herd had already 
died. 
Should the deer fail them they will have recourse to 
the ordinary food of Arctic travellers, that “ pemmican ” 
we have heard of so often and so few of us have 
tasted. 
If the exploring party of twelve is forced to depend 
upon this little boat of some sixteen feet it will cause 
much discomfort to the explorers; but even this “detail” 
has been carefully studied, and we saw the dog-skin 
mantle which is to serve as their sleeping coverlid if it 
should come to this. Dog-skin is found far warmer 
