_April 14th._--Last night our sleeping-bags were frozen so hard that it was with great difficulty we succeeded in getting into them. Even when this was accomplished, the warmth we derived from them was inappreciable, and we felt more as if we were confined in a wooden box or coffin than in a woollen bag! My blanket wrappers, although I laid on them all night, were so stiff this morning that I had the utmost difficulty in bending them over my feet! Being Good Friday, our prayers in the morning were of longer duration than usual.
Crossed an old floe having a hard incrustation on its surface--not sufficiently strong, however, to bear the weight either of the men or the sledges; consequently at every step we broke through, and would then sink deeply into soft snow. This was not only very laborious but very aggravating work.
On portions of the road, where these patches of level soft snow occurred, the flat-bottomed taboggans, used in the Hudson Bay Company's territory, would be suitable. But the greater part of the road was over heavy broken-up hummocks and hard fragments of ice, lying at all kinds of angles; on the whole we found the eight-men high-runner sledge which we used, and which was originally designed by Sir Leopold McClintock, infinitely preferable. Long experience has conclusively proved its excellence. It was the kind of sledge with which the North West Passage was discovered and the Parry Islands explored, and with us it once more did most admirable service in many directions, and over the roughest ground imaginable.
The temperature was too low to allow us to stop for the purpose of obtaining a meridian altitude, which we invariably get at noon. There was an unpleasant nipping breeze from the northward; our faces, more especially our noses, being "touched up" constantly by Jack Frost.
The floes off Cape Joseph Henry, although actually smaller than most of those we have crossed, were far more heavy. In all probability they are reduced in size by great and continual pressure off the cape. The wind freshening, and the weather becoming very thick, we halted an hour earlier than we otherwise would have done.
John Shirley, one of my sledge crew, complained of pains in his ankles and knees. On examination they appeared slightly swollen, and I treated him according to the instructions laid down for the guidance of the sledging officers by our doctor.