Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/369

 *cious throats; and, with these swallowings and the breakings, we are now so badly off that we must fall back upon rope to replace the skin lines. To add to our embarrassments, Jensen forgot last night to cover over his sledge, (Knorr's makes the roof of our hut,) and when we went out in the morning, the sledge was torn to pieces, the lashings were all eaten, and the pieces of the sledge were scattered over the snow all around the camp.

I have nearly eight hundred pounds of dog food, but the daily drain is very great; and this, taken in connection with the slowness of our progress, looks unpromising.

May 1st.

We found it impossible to get on to-day with even one half the cargo, and were therefore forced to make three parcels of it,—one of which I estimate that we have brought nine miles, as traveled, though probably not one third that distance in a straight line. It is impossible to describe the nature of the ice over which we have struggled. It is even worse than any thing we have encountered before. The run of to-day has brought the coast quite conspicuously in view. I am coming upon my old survey of 1854, and am not far from my return track at that time; but how different the condition of the ice! Then my principal difficulty was in the outward journey, due north from Van Rensselaer Harbor. Returning further down the Sound, near where we now are, the ice was found to be but little broken, and I crossed from shore to shore in two days.

I have now a much finer opportunity for observation than I had then, for there was on the former occasion much fog, and I was constantly snow-blind.