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And some might say the view was very beautiful, and no doubt it was beautiful, though not so to me. For I hate the long snow-fields, the vast plains of névé with their glare and their infinite infernal monotony. Sometimes when I took off my snow-goggles the shining white world seemed a glaring and bleached moon-land, a land wholly unfit for human beings, as indeed it is.
In addition to remaking the sledges, Bjaaland had to get the ski ready. To fit the big, broad boots we should wear, the Huitfeldt fittings had to be much broader than usual, and we had such with us, so that Bjaaland had only to change them. The ski-bindings were like the snow-goggles; everyone had his own patent.
It seems the only method of guarding against it is to wear what we called snow-goggles all the time one is out of doors. The natives use those of home manufacture that is, a piece of wood with a notch to fit over the bridge of the nose, and a narrow, horizontal slit opposite each eye.
He was tremendously pleased with it; but so he was with his snow-goggles, in spite of the fact that he could not see with them, and that they allowed him to become snow-blind. The rest of us kept our sleeping-bags as they were, only lengthening or shortening them as required. We were all greatly pleased with the device for closing them on the plan of a sack.
What little flesh was still on the bones was very fresh; one body had all the flesh on. The hair was light; it looked like a long body. He saw a number of wire snow-goggles, and alongside the body with flesh on it was a pair of gold spectacles.
On the evening of the 4th of June we met a young man, named Adlekok, who, during the previous summer, had found a new cairn erected by white men near Pfeffer River, which had never been seen by any other Inuits. Near by were three graves and a tent place in which he found a pair of wire-gauze snow-goggles, which we bought from him.
But I was glad to have been off the beaten track for once. Perhaps it is not wholly an advantage that most Alpine literature has been done by experts in climbing, by men who have climbed till climbing is second nature and they see Nature through their snow-goggles as something to be circumvented. That this is the attitude of most mountaineers is tolerably obvious.
The threat of a stiff "blow" aroused hopes of release several times, but the blizzard probably the first Antarctic blizzard that was ever longed for did not arrive. New Year's Day found Stenhouse and other men just recovering from an attack of snow-blindness, contracted by making an excursion across the floes without snow-goggles.
The inner one was of calf-skin or thin female reindeer-skin, and quite light; the outer one was of heavy buck reindeer-skin, and weighed about 13 pounds. Both were open at the end, like a sack, and were laced together round the neck. I have always found this pattern the easiest, simplest, most comfortable, and best. We recommend it to all. Novelties in the way of snow-goggles were many.
One is very apt to push one's snow-goggles up on to one's forehead, especially if they are fitted with dark glasses. However, we always came through it very well; only a few of us had a little touch of this unpleasant complaint. Curiously enough, snow-blindness has something in common with seasickness.
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