They had hoped that when they were once through this preliminary field of broken ice they would reach a level sheet, over which they might travel with comparative ease, but, as time went on, the conditions seemed to become worse instead of better, for on the morning of the 26th rain began to fall heavily, with the result that the explorers were soon wet through, and nearly half the surface of the ice over which they had to travel was covered with little pools. From that time rain was almost constant, and Parry was the first to observe that the climate of these remoter Polar regions is actually milder than those of the northern shores of America, 7° to 15° further south. The rain was often varied by fog, while, to add to the difficulties of the journey, they found that much of the surface ice over which they had to travel was composed of needle-like crystals, placed vertically, which, as the season advanced, afforded very poor foothold and cut their boots and feet. One day was very like another on that most difficult journey. The party was usually aroused at about eight o’clock in the evening by a lusty tar blowing a reveille on a bugle. After prayers had been read, the men exchanged their fur sleeping suits for their walking clothes, which were, as a rule, still soaking wet or else frozen solid. This done, they would breakfast on cocoa and biscuits, and, having loaded the sledges, they would set about the day’s work. Their course underwent a good deal of variety, but it was never anything but arduous. Sometimes they had to haul the boat by main force over almost perpendicular blocks of ice. Sometimes they had to toil through snowy sludge, into which they sank so deeply that on one occasion it took them two hours to travel a hundred yards. Sometimes the pools and channels which separated the ice blocks from one another were not more than half a boat’s length broad, and the provisions had to be ferried over on blocks of ice, a most anxious proceeding, seeing that if an accident had occurred the whole party would have been left to starve. After anything between five and ten hours’ work, during which they would make four or five miles, they would halt for the night, or, to speak more accurately, for the day, and, having changed into dry clothes, they would set about the necessary repairs, take supper, and retire to bed.