Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/386



If fortunate in point of distance accomplished, yet the day was not all that I had hoped. The land-ice was exceedingly rough, and it was not without much difficulty that we effected a passage around some of the points. In one of our most difficult encounters of this nature, Jensen slipped, and again injured his leg, and afterwards sprained his back while lifting his sledge. In consequence of these accidents our progress was much retarded during the following day, and involved me again in serious embarrassment. My diary thus sums up our situation:—

May 15th.

Jensen, my strongest man and the one upon whose physical endurance I have always relied most confidently, is not only fatigued but completely broken down. He lies on the sledge, moaning and groaning with pain from a sprained back and his injured leg; and what to do with him I do not see. He appears to be unable to go further, and the only question concerning him seems to be, how he is to be got home. With anything like a fair field, I ought to reach about lat. 83°, but the loss of Jensen's muscular strength is damaging to me. The track has been execrable to-*day; and yet, all things considered, we have done very well. We have made, at the least, twenty miles. McDonald is pretty well used up, and Knorr is quite as bad, if he could be got to own it. Jensen's sufferings have naturally affected his spirits; and with these long hundreds of miles lying behind us, it is perhaps not surprising that his only present expectation will be realized, if his bones are left to bleach among these barren rocks. What I shall do to-*morrow, the morrow must determine. Thanks to careful nursing, I have yet my dogs in fair condition; and that is the best part of the battle.