n, &c. His eyes are often of a light blue colour from
the incessant snow-glare, which has a queer effect, especially, as often
happens, when one pupil has retained its original colour. The leader of
my team, a lean, grizzled old customer with the muzzle of a wolf, was
the quaintest of all. Oddly enough, kicks gained his friendship much
more readily than kindness, if the kicker happened to be a favoured
acquaintance; if not, trouble was likely to ensue, as De Clinchamp once
found to his cost! Towards the other male dogs of my team "Tchort," or
the Devil, assumed an air of almost snobbish superiority, but to the
females he was affability itself. The reader will scarcely believe that
I have seen this weird animal squat gravely in front of one of the
opposite sex, extend his right paw and tap her playfully on the jowl,
the compliment being returned by an affectionate lick on Tchort's right
ear. But this is a fact, and only one of many extraordinary
eccentricities which I observed amongst our canine friends while
journeying down the coast. Tchort, however, was a sad thief and stole
everything he could lay his hands, or rather teeth, upon, from seal-meat
to a pair of moccasins. At night, therefore, when other dogs were free
to roam about camp, my leader was invariably fastened firmly to a sled,
where he usually revenged himself by howling dismally at intervals. But
he was a capital leader and as steady as a rock, excepting when the
team, at the sight of a distant object on the snow, would give one
piercing yelp of joy, and bolt towards it at breakneck speed, utterly
regardless of the brake or curses of the driver. I am bound to say that
on these occasions Tchort was the most unruly of the lot.

Beyond Erktrik the coast becomes so rocky and precipitous that we
travelled chiefly over the sea, and progress was slower than it had
been yet on account of the mountainous ice we encountered around the
numerous headlands. There was little driving to do, every man having to
turn to and haul with the dogs, or lift the sleds bodily across
crevasses, or over steep, slippery icebanks. For a week the sky remained
unclouded, and the sun beat down so fiercely that during the day our
garments were soaked with perspiration, which would freeze to the skin
at night and intensify the cold. West of Cape North the coast is of no
great height, and although distance and the rarefied atmosphere often
made the cliffs appear of formidable dimensions, a ne