“Conversation carried on by men straining at the traces can certainly not be very animated. The frost prevents smoking, for the pipes freeze. There is a continued conflict against the loss of warmth; and the cold penetrates in a hundred different ways. Now the chin is numbed, a painful straining of the forehead sets in, or a violent pricking of the nostrils, which are exposed to the wind. Sometimes one stands in danger of the heels, the toes, or the hands being frost-bitten. The hair of the face, and even the eyelashes, get hoar with frost,—indeed, the eyes are often completely closed,—and every frozen spot on the body must at once be rubbed with lumps of snow resembling pumice-stone, until a warm, pricking glow succeeds. When, as in the case of many of our party, the frozen hands or feet were not rubbed with snow until too late, it led to numerous blisters. The fingers swelled up into lumps, and became quite numbed; but the noses (the whole eight of which were frozen) were more fortunate: they emerged from a white into a red stage of enlarged dimensions, were eventually covered with a parchment-like skin, remaining for some time most sensitive, and by slow degrees regained their normal condition, so that by the time we landed in Europe they were all right again. The heat of our bodies, which we did our best to retain by warm woollen clothes, was carried away in a moment by the slightest wind; and if it increased, the cold crept between every button of our seal-skin clothing; the penetrating icy wind was felt at every stitch; the arms hung down like lead, deadly cold, and no one dared to walk about without a mask. If the wind rose still more, curtains of penetrating snow-crystals rose with it from the ground; then a snowstorm, which always comes from the north, might be expected, announcing itself by a lofty white appearance in the south, the violet colour and close proximity of the mountains, and low-hanging clouds. But still we risk the march forward against the thickening snow, until painful breathing and stiffening limbs warn us to pitch our tent. “Under ordinary circumstances this was done about 6 or 7 p.m., on a smooth surface. A hole was quickly dug with shovels, on which the tent was erected, and the dug-out blocks of snow laid round it for safety against the storm, and the sledge placed as a shield to the north. The tent was kept upright by means of four long poles, each crossed at the top, stretched by ropes fastened to axes or piles driven into the ground. When the sleeping-sack had been laid down in the tent, our personal baggage settled, the kettle filled with blocks of snow by the cook, the lamp lit, and the rations given out, our comrades, who, owing to the increased cold since the setting of the sun, had meanwhile been running and jumping to keep themselves warm, were allowed to enter.