“The track,” he says, “was rough, past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed together, and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface. The interstices between these closely accumulated ice-masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted snow. The reader will easily imagine the rest. He will see the sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads. He will see them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is no opening, and again descending on the other side--the sledge often plunging over a precipice, sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a better track: and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will make a mile or so with comparative ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes a help and sometimes a hindrance. Their surface is uniformly hard, but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and in a most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the weight, and the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted. But, worse than this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently bridged over with snow in such a manner as to leave a considerable space at the bottom quite unfilled; and at the very moment when all looks promising, down sinks one man to his middle, another to the neck, another is buried out of sight; the sledge gives way,--and to extricate the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labour of hours. It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labour more disheartening, or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals.” * * * * *