Previous
sledge journeys had taught us how to clothe ourselves and otherwise
provide against the cold, and we had already become acquainted with
Inuit fare, so that when the emergency arrived when we were compelled
to subsist entirely upon such food, we did not regard it with that
repugnance that those would who had not become accustomed to it. In
other words, we had become thoroughly acclimated during the eight
months we had already lived in the country.
CHAPTER IV.
IN THE SLEDGES.
It was eleven o'clock on the morning of the 1st of April when the three
heavily laden sledges moved out from Camp Daly on to the shore ice of
Hudson's Bay, and commenced the long march toward King William Land.
Lieutenant Schwatka's preliminary sledge journey in the direction of
Wager River, during midwinter, had determined him upon taking that
route, though across land entirely unknown either to previous explorers
or to any natives with whom we had come in contact. Whether we would
find practicable watercourses, such as rivers and lakes, or whether
mountain ranges would oppose their granite walls to farther progress,
was yet to be ascertained. Its recommendation was that it was the most
direct course, and whatever obstacles it might present would, when
overcome, always leave us that much nearer our goal.
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