As a general rule, people look upon extreme cold as the most characteristic and most insupportable part of Arctic service, but this is altogether a mistake. It is not nearly as trying as the long darkness, and both are insignificant compared to the social friction of the confined life—a friction which would be unbearable if the men and officers had not been accustomed to habits of discipline, and inured to the confinement and restraints of “man-of-war” life. The hardships of mere low temperature are by no means unendurable. In comfortable winter quarters, and with plenty of dry warm clothing, we found the extremest cold rather curious and interesting than painful or dangerous. An icy tub on an English winter morning feels colder to the skin than the calm Arctic air. Cold alone never interrupted daily exercise. It was possible to walk for two or three hours over our snow-clad hills, in a temperature of one hundred degrees below freezing, without getting a single frost-bite, or perceptibly lowering the temperature of the body. It is possible even to perspire if one works hard enough. The fact is, only the face and lungs are really exposed, and neither appear to suffer from it. Our experience led us to think that men, thoroughly prepared, might safely encounter far lower temperatures. Many a time, as we sat round the stove on the main-deck discussing the events of the day and the state of the weather, the relative merits of Arctic cold and tropic heat were warmly canvassed. Several of both our officers and men had lately returned from the Ashantee campaign, and they could speak with authority. There was one thing clear—one could sometimes get warm in the Arctic, but never get cool on the Coast. If the intense cold was more endurable in winter quarters than some of us had anticipated, it was altogether a different thing camping out away from the ship on a sledge party. Then, with food and clothing limited by the sledge-weights, with no warmer bed than a snowdrift, and no possibility of changing ice-saturated clothes, cold, far less than that experienced in winter quarters, becomes a real hardship, and its miseries can hardly be exaggerated.