y, the messenger should
reach him before he sent off any or all his men, in travelling parties,
in the spring. The little forlorn hope consisted of ten men under the
command of Lieutenant Pirn, an officer who had been with Captain Kellett
in the "Herald" on the Pacific side, had spent a winter in the "Plover"
up Behring's Straits, and had been one of the last men whom the
"Investigator" had seen before they put into the Arctic Ocean, to
discover, as it proved, the Northwest Passage.

Here we must stop a moment, to tell what one of these sledge parties is
by whose efforts so much has been added to our knowledge of Arctic
geography, in journeys which could never have been achieved in ships or
boats. In the work of the "Resolute's" parties, in this spring of 1852,
Commander McClintock travelled 1,325 miles with his sledge, and
Lieutenant Mecham 1,163 miles with his, through regions before wholly
unexplored. The sledge, as we have said, is in general contour not
unlike a Yankee wood-sled, about eleven feet long. The runners are
curved at each end. The sled is fitted with a light canvas trough, so
adjusted that, in case of necessity, all the stores, &c., can be ferried
over any narrow lane of water in the ice. There are packed on this sled
a tent for eight or ten men, five or six pikes, one or more of which Is
fitted as an ice-chisel; two large buffalo-skins, a water-tight
floor-cloth, which contrives

"a double debt to pay,
A floor by night, the sledge's sail by day"

(and it must be remembered that "day" and "night" in those regions are
very equivocal terms). There are, besides, a cooking-apparatus, of which
the fire is made in spirit or tallow lamps, one or two guns, a pick and
shovel, instruments for observation, pannikins, spoons, and a little
magazine of such necessaries, with the extra clothing of the party. Then
the provision, the supply of which measures the length of the
expedition, consists of about a pound of bread and a pound of pemmican
per man per day, six ounces of pork, and a little preserved potato, rum,
lime-juice, tea, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, or other such creature
comforts. The sled is fitted with two drag-ropes, at which the men haul.
The officer goes ahead to find the best way among hummocks of ice or
masses of snow. Sometimes on a smooth floe, before the wind, the
floor-cloth is set for a sail, and she runs off merrily, perhaps with
several of the crew on board, and the rest runnin