on traversed by my
expedition for nearly two months of continuous travel from the last
Russian outpost to Bering Straits. Place a piece of coal sprinkled with
salt on a white tablecloth, a few inches off it scatter some lump sugar,
and it will give you in miniature a very fair presentment of the
scenery. The coal is the bleak coast-line continually swept clear of
snow by furious gales; the sugar, sea-ice, and the cloth the frozen
beach over which we journeyed for over 1600 miles. The dreary outlook
never changed; occasionally the cliffs vanished and our way would lie
across the tundras--marshy plains--which in summer encircle the Polar
Sea with a belt of verdure and wild flowers, but which in winter-time
are merged with the frozen ocean in one boundless, bewildering
wilderness of white. In hazy weather land and sky formed one
impenetrable veil, with no horizon as dividing line, when, even at a
short distance away, men and dog-sleds resembled flies crawling up a
white curtain. But on clear days, unfortunately rare, the blue sky was
Mediterranean, and at such times the bergs out at sea would flash like
jewels in the full blaze of the sunshine, while blocks of dark green
ice, half buried in snow under shadow of the cliffs, would appear for
all the world like _cabochon_ emeralds dropped into a mass of whipped
cream. But the reverse of this picture was depressing in the extreme.
For on cloudy days the snow would assume a dull leaden appearance, and
the sea-ice become a slate grey, with dense banks of woolly, white fog
encircling the dismal scene. Fair and foul weather in the Arctic
reminded me of some beautiful woman, bejewelled and radiant amid lights
and laughter, and the same divinity landing dishevelled, pale, and
sea-sick from the deck of a Channel steamer.

But we had little time, or indeed inclination, to admire the beauties of
nature, which are robbed of half their charms when viewed by the owner
of an empty stomach. Did not Dr. Johnson once truthfully remark that,
"the finest landscape is spoiled without a good inn in the foreground"?
Time also in our case meant not merely money, but life, and we were
therefore compelled to push on day after day, week after week, at the
highest rate of speed attainable by our miserable teams, which, to do
them justice, did their best. The poor beasts seemed to be instinctively
aware that our food would only last for a limited period. When the coast
was visible we steered by it, trav