On our return journey we encountered a furious gale of wind, which broke up the ice along the coast line, and forced us to drag our sledges over the hills, the summits of which were almost bare, the force of the gale having blown the snow completely off. Any one who has ever attempted to drag a sledge over a rough stony road will know the severe toil and labour that is required to be exerted in order to make any progress. Crossing a bay we made a short halt for luncheon on the ice, under the lee of a high hummock, and narrowly escaped destruction from having selected such a spot for a halt. Without our observing it, the ice began breaking up, and it was only by strenuous exertions that we succeeded in reaching the shore in safety, whence we observed the ice on which we had recently been encamped drifting in small fragments to seaward. If this disruption had not been observed in time, nothing short of a miracle could have saved us. The violence of the gale was so terrific that pebbles and shingle were blown along by its force, mercilessly striking our faces and causing acute pain. Still we had to struggle onwards, for there was no possible lee under which we could pitch our tents and obtain shelter. An attempt to do so was unsuccessful, and had to be abandoned. One of the men, failing from sheer exhaustion, had to be carried on the sledge. This seriously added to our difficulties, for it increased the load which the wearied sledgers had to drag, whilst it diminished the power of the draggers. But the indomitable spirit and pluck of the British sailor overcame all obstacles, and after an arduous march of eighteen hours in the face of a furious hurricane, we arrived, to our no small relief, alongside the "Alert." Never was a goal attained with more pleasure and satisfaction than was our Arctic home reached that night by the fatigued and half-blinded sledge travellers. Untrained as they were, this forced march had seriously overtaxed their strength and entailed much suffering. Some few were, on their return, placed under the doctor's hands. Meanwhile those remaining on board the ship, but few in number, spent an anxious and trying time. The young ice, by which the ship was surrounded, had been completely broken up by the fury of the gale, and had disappeared; and had it not been for the protecting grounded floe-bergs, small mercy would have been shown to the good ship "Alert," by "ye thick-ribbed ice."