Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/350

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task which we had undertaken. By winding to the right and left, and by occasionally retracing our steps when we had selected an impracticable route, we managed to get over the first few miles without much embarrassment, but farther on the track was rough past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed together and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface and requiring the traveler to pick the best footing he can over the inequalities,—sometimes mounting unavoidable obstructions to an elevation of ten, and again more than a hundred feet above the general level.

The interstices between these closely accumulated ice masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted snow. The reader will readily imagine the rest. He will see the sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads, as Napoleon's soldiers may be supposed to have done when drawing their artillery through the steep and rugged passes of the Alps. He will see them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is no opening, and again descending on the other side, the sledge often plunging over a precipice, sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a better track; and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will make a mile or so