In the second place, at this time of the year the ice, over which the sledges have to be dragged, is of very recent formation, and is consequently weak and dangerous. The travellers are therefore more liable to immersion by breaking through the thin ice at this period of the season than they are during the spring, or indeed at any other time. Young, and therefore smooth and level ice, covered with a treacherous layer of snow, often entices the unwary to turn from the rougher but stronger floes to travel on its flat plain surface. An immersion is invariably the result. Sometimes the leading men on the drag-ropes break through this weak ice first, and, by so doing, time is given to stop and save the sledge; but very often the ice directly under the sledge gives way without previous warning, when every effort must be at once directed to save the sledge. Although this is always successful it is generally at the expense of the greater part of the biscuit, which is so saturated with salt water as to be uneatable, and the wetting, and the consequent freezing, of the tent with all its appurtenances. Nothing more wretched and miserable can be conceived than having to pass the night in a stiffly frozen sleeping bag, inside a tent, which at the best of times is barely large enough to accommodate the party of men for whom it is allotted, but which has been considerably shrunk by being frozen. Not the least unpleasant part is the process of pitching it, for having become as hard as a piece of board, it is with great difficulty unfolded; more especially as this operation has to be performed after the fatigues of a hard day's sledging, by wearied men, in such a temperature that it is impossible to expose the hands bare to the cold, and it must therefore be carried out with mittens on. The constant wetting of the feet also renders the men more liable to frost-bites; whilst the heavy fall of snow, usually experienced in these regions during the autumn, renders the work ten times more arduous. For the air thus becomes so thick that it is impossible to see many yards ahead, and we have to trust solely to a compass as a guide. We might, in truth, fairly quote the lines from Spenser's "Faërie Queene," at the heading of the present chapter, as illustrating our difficulties in this respect-- "That all things one, and one as nothing was, And this great universe seemed one confused mass." And lastly this continual breaking through the ice of both men and sledge, combined with the heavy and incessant fall of snow, renders the task of walking and dragging a sledge one of extreme labour and anxiety. These were the little difficulties we had to experience during our novitiate in this autumn sledge travelling, and they must be generally expected by explorers who go away so late in the year. [Illustration: START OF THE AUTUMN SLEDGES.]