heir gaunt flanks
and hungry eyes, and think with despair of the thousand odd miles that
lay between us and Bering Straits. Then the Russian drivers, secretly
backed by Mikouline, threatened almost daily to desert us and return to
the Kolyma. One morning all three burst into my tent and vowed that
nothing should induce them to proceed a mile further. Finally, force had
to be employed to keep these cowards together, and, luckily, we were
well armed, which they were not. But this trouble necessitated a watch
by night, as exhausting as it was painful in the pitiless cold. Only ten
days out from the Kolyma we were living on a quarter of a pound of
_Carnyl_ and a little frozen fish a day, a diet that would scarcely
satisfy a healthy child. Bread, biscuits, and everything in the shape of
flour was finished a week after leaving Kolymsk, but luckily we had
plenty of tea and tobacco, which kept life within us to the last.

Then sickness came. Owing to the frequent dearth of fuel our furs and
foot-gear were never quite dry, and during sleep our feet were often
frozen by the moisture formed during the day. One fireless night De
Clinchamp entirely lost the use of his limbs, and a day's delay was the
result. Four days later he slipped into a crevasse while after a bear
and ruptured himself. This bear, by the way, was the only living thing
we saw throughout that journey of nearly six hundred miles to Tchaun
Bay. Then I was attacked by snow-blindness, the pain of which must be
experienced to be realised. Goggles gave me no relief, and in
civilisation the malady would have necessitated medical care and a
darkened room. Here it meant pushing on day after day half blinded and
in great agony, especially when there was no drift-wood and therefore no
hot water to subdue the inflammation. Sleep or rest of any kind was
impossible for nearly a week, and for two days my eyes closed up
entirely and I lay helpless on a sled, which was upset, on an average,
twice every hour on the rough, jagged ice. At last we struck a fair
quantity of wood and halted for forty-eight hours, and here I obtained
relief with zinc and hot water, while Mikouline proceeded to rub tobacco
into his inflamed optics, a favourite cure on the Kolyma, which oddly
enough does not always fail. About this time one of the dogs was
attacked with rabies, and bit several others before we could shoot it.
We lost over a dozen dogs in this way before reaching Bering Straits,
this being