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The frightened child buries its little face in the bosom of his nurse, and the soldiers now convey them both to the waiting sledges. The dethroned emperor is quickly transported to the dethroned regent at Elizabeth's palace, who, with hot tears, clasps her son to her heart. Meanwhile, Elizabeth had made herself absolute mistress of the imperial palace.
I had done too much on the outward journey, for what with building all the depot cairns ahead of the pony party, and what with the effects of the spring sledge journey, too much had been asked of me. I had never been out of harness from the day I left Hut Point, for even with the motor sledges we practically pulled them along.
They were obliged to reduce their tents to the smallest possible size, and they could carry but a limited supply of fuel. There were five sledges in all, each drawn by four men, while six men were harnessed to the boat, in which the old captain, who was unable to walk, was placed.
On the 11th of April, Captain McClure, with Mr Court, second master, and a sledge party, started to cross the ice on sledges, to visit Winter Harbour, in Melville Island. Soon after leaving the ship a thick fog came on, and continued for several days, so that their destination was not reached till the 28th.
Got three people lowered by the Alpine rope Evans, Bowers, and Taylor then sent down the sledges, which went down in fine style, fully packed then the remainder of the party. For the last three, drove a stake hard down in the snow and used the rope round it, the men being lowered by people below came down last myself.
The sledges having thus to go backwards and forwards over the same road, the advance was very slow, averaging not more than a mile and a quarter each day. Unable to obtain any fresh provisions, their food was of a character not calculated to maintain their health, and consequently ere long they were all attacked by scurvy.
Court carriages with lackeys in crimson and gold, ambassadors' sledges with cock-plumed chasseurs and cockaded coachmen, the latter wearing their chevrons on their backs; rude wooden sledges, whose sides are made of knotted ropes, filled with superfluous snow; grand ducal troikas with clinking harnesses studded with metal plaques and flying tassels, the outer horses coquetting, as usual, beside the staid trot of the shaft-horse, all mingle in the endless procession which flows on up the Nevsky Prospekt through the Bolshaya Morskaya, Great Sea Street, and out upon the Neva quays, and back again, to see and be seen, until long after the sun has set on the short days, at six minutes to three.
And, in the high latitudes to which the restless and apprehensive spirit of Tisquantum had led him, he had traveled over boundless fields of snow in the sledges of the diminutive Esquimaux, and lodged in their strange winter-dwellings of frozen snow, that look as if they were built of the purest alabaster, with windows of ice as clear as crystal.
It was not quite dark; the northern lights shot forth red and blue flames, like continuous fireworks, and the snow glittered, and reflected back the light, so that the night here was one long twilight. When the moon was brightest, the natives came in crowds to see the sailors. They had a very singular appearance in their rough, hairy dresses of fur, and riding in sledges over the ice.
Under such circumstances it was a relief to get outside, shift the tents and dig out the sledges. All of the tents had been reduced to the smallest space by the gradual pressure of snow, the old sites being deep pits with hollowed, icy, wet centers.
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