Well, during the first days, progress was very slow, the ice being rough
and laney, and the dogs behaving most badly, stopping dead at every
difficulty, and leaping over the traces. Clark had had the excellent
idea of attaching a gold-beater's-skin balloon, with a lifting power of
35 pounds, to each sledge, and we had with us a supply of zinc and
sulphuric-acid to repair the hydrogen-waste from the bags; but on the
third day Mew over-filled and burst his balloon, and I and Clark had to
cut ours loose in order to equalise weights, for we could neither leave
him behind, turn back to the ship, nor mend the bag. So it happened that
at the end of the fourth day out, we had made only nineteen miles, and
could still from a hummock discern afar the leaning masts of the old
Boreal. Clark led on ski, captaining a sledge with 400 lbs. of
instruments, ammunition, pemmican, aleuronate bread; Mew followed, his
sledge containing provisions only; and last came I, with a mixed
freight. But on the third day Clark had an attack of snow-blindness, and
Mew took his place.
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