year, great suffering in the shape
of cold, the people being exposed to the weather during the severest
part of the day. From the 15th to the 19th the weather was of the same
nature,--constant gales of wind in our faces, snow-storms, and heavy
drift; against which we struggled, helped by a rising temperature, that
we flattered ourselves would end in summer,--a mistake for which we
afterwards suffered bitterly, the men having, from the ease with which
they kept themselves warm, become careless of their clothing, and
heedless of those precautions against frost-bite which a winter's
experience had taught them.

Easter Sunday came in gloomily, with a wind inclined to veer to the
northward, and with every appearance of bad weather. Setting our sails
on the sledges, and kites likewise when the wind served, the division
hurried on for Cape Walker, which loomed now and then through the
snow-drift ahead of us. The rapidity of the pace at which we now
advanced--thanks to the help afforded by the sails--threw all into a
profuse perspiration, especially the seamen, who really looked as if
toiling under a tropical sun rather than in an arctic night, with the
temperature below freezing-point. Fatigue obliged us to halt short of
the land, and postpone for another day's march the landing on the
unvisited shores of Cape Walker.

During the sleeping hours, the increased attention to the fur covering,
and the carefully closed door, told us that the temperature was
falling; and the poor cook, with a rueful countenance, announced that
it was below zero, as he prepared the morning meal. More than usual
difficulty was found in pulling on our stiffly-frozen boots, stockings,
and outer garments; and when the men went out of the tent they soon
found their clothing becoming perfectly hard, from the action of the
intense cold on what had been for several days saturated with
perspiration. To start and march briskly was now the only safety, and
in double-quick time tents were down and sledges moving. A nor'-wester
was fast turning up, and as the night of Easter Monday closed around
us, the cold increased with alarming rapidity. One of those magnificent
conglomerations of halos and parhelia common to these regions lit up
the northern heavens, and, by the brilliancy of colouring and startling
number of false suns, seemed as if to be mocking the sufferings of our
gallant fellows, who, with faces averted and bended bodies, strained
every nerve to rea