Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/168

 *eling upon the sea, that I doubt if I should have attempted a journey in that quarter. In those positions most favorable to early freezing the ice does not unite firmly until the darkness has fully set in; and traveling is not only attended with much risk, but with great loss of that physical strength so necessary to resist the insidious influences of the malady, hitherto so often fatal to sojourners in the Arctic darkness. And it has been the general judgment of my predecessors in this region, that the late spring and early summer are alone calculated for successful sledge traveling. I recall but two commanders who have sent parties into the field in the autumn, and in both of these cases the attempt was, apparently, not only useless, but prejudicial. The men were broken down by the severity of the exposure—having been almost constantly wet and always cold—and when the darkness set in they were laid up with the scurvy; and in the spring it was discovered that the depots which they had established were, for the most part, either destroyed by bears or were otherwise unavailable.

With inland traveling the case is different. There is then no risk of getting wet, and I have not ordinarily experienced serious difficulty in traveling at any temperature, however severe, provided I could keep my party dry. Some dampness is, however, almost unavoidable even on land journeys, and this is, in truth, one of the most embarrassing obstacles with which the Arctic traveler has to contend. Even at low temperatures he cannot wholly avoid some moisture to his clothes and fur bedding, caused by the warmth of his own person melting the snow beneath him while he sleeps.

This being our first journey, of course everybody