It was advisable to follow Lieutenant Parr’s footprints, for, once off the track, the distressed party might easily be passed. He had called at Snow-house Point, hoping to find lamp and matches that would enable him to get a drink in the tent pitched there to assist returning parties, but a wolf had gnawed the tent ropes, and it lay flat on the snow. Near Castle Floe the tracks crossed and re-crossed in a complete maze, for there he had all but lost his way in a treacherous fog. A short halt was necessary to rest and feed the dogs, then we pushed on as before. At length, twenty-three hours after leaving the ship, we caught sight of a figure seated beside a loaded sledge, and resting his head upon his hands; then two others staggered up, helping a third between them; and a moment after, six men slowly emerged from among the hummocks dragging up a second sledge. The wind blowing from them towards us prevented them hearing our first shout, but they soon saw us, and with a faint cheer limped forward, poor fellows, to meet us. For a time our hearts were in our throats, and no one could speak much. Hardly one of them was recognisable. The thin, feeble voices, the swollen and frost-peeled faces and crippled limbs, made an awful contrast to the picked body of determined men we had seen march north only two months before. Four lay packed amongst the tent robes on the sledges—only four, for one had died soon after Parr left them. He was a private in the marine artillery, and belonged to the “Victoria” sledge. Poor Porter—George, as the men called him—had been one of the strongest and most energetic of the party. They had dragged him on the sledge thirty-nine days—others had been on longer—and his death greatly depressed both crews. They buried him deep in the ice not far from their camp, and had made one day’s march southwards when we met them. The place was only a mile off, so, when the wants of the survivors had been attended to, we walked back to see it. Sunlight streaming through low clouds of drifting snow made it difficult to see far, but we soon recognised the little mound on the side of a floe-hill. A rough cross, made of a sledge-batten and a paddle, and with a text written on it in pencil, stood at the head. They could do no more for him. Perhaps the sketch reproduced in this book (Plate No. 14) may serve as a humble memento of our shipmate’s grave, the most northern of any race or of any time. [Illustration: PLATE XIV.—THE MOST NORTHERN GRAVE, JUNE, 1876.—p. 65. A little mound of ice on the side of a floe-hill, and a rough cross made of a sledge batten and a paddle, mark our shipmate’s grave—the most northern of any race or time.]