We would drag the
bear-skin head-foremost, so that the fur would slip more easily over the
snow. But when we had done this, we discovered that, to say nothing of
dragging the load, we could not even start it. Our united efforts were
wholly unequal to the task of moving it even so much as an inch; and,
like Robinson Crusoe with his boat, we had wholly miscalculated the
means, thinking only of the end. And so it is sometimes, even with wiser
heads than ours.

"We were now in even greater trouble than ever; but being at length
fully satisfied of the utter hopelessness of proceeding in this manner,
we went back next day to the sledge, and began to work upon it again;
all the while looking out for the savages, and expecting them every
minute to come and murder us."

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Number of Peculiar People appear, and the Castaways
disappear from the Rock of Good Hope.

"We worked away at the sledge as fast as possible, being bent upon
having it finished and getting off from the island as quickly as we
could.

"At last it was completed, and we dragged it down to the beach and out
upon the ice. Finding that it went better than we had dared to expect,
we returned to our hut, and, bundling together such of our furs and
other things as we thought we should require on the long journey before
us, carried them down and stowed them on the sledge. Among them were
included one lamp, one pot, and one cup. We could not drag a very heavy
load, even if the sledge would bear up under it, so we had to limit
ourselves to the least possible allowance of everything. Food was, of
course, more important to us than anything else, and of this we
determined to take all that we could put upon the sledge with safety.

"All this time we felt very sad, and we worked in a very gloomy spirit.
Everything appeared so uncertain before us; the journey we were about to
undertake, at first seeming to promise so hopefully, had become a very
doubtful undertaking; and, since day after day passed by without
bringing the savages upon us, we got to be less afraid of them, and in
this same proportion was reduced our confidence in the propriety of
leaving the island in this manner for an unknown place, and in utter
ignorance as to whether the savage had told us truth about the ships.

"However, as you have seen before, when the Dean and I got an idea in
our heads we did not easily abandon it. Once determined to make the
trial, we had persevered un