cold 360 lbs. is sometimes a heavy load for the dogs. Whalebone is placed under the runners in spring. The best time for sledging is in March and April. When the cold equals - 25 degrees the draught is much more heavy, and when it is 40 degrees the friction is greatly increased from the granular state of the snow.

Good thongs to be used in the construction of sledges may be made of elk, ox, or walrus-skin: the first are very good but scarce, and the preparation of ox-leather is ill-understood; walrus-skin is most frequently used, and is very durable. The whole of the lading of a sledge should be wrapped in a covering of soft rein-deer skin, and bound so strongly to the sledge with thongs as to be quite secure from displacement in the overturns which frequently occur. A complete sledge of large size, and drawn by twelve or thirteen dogs, requires, including the harness and the binding of the lading, 760 feet of thongs of various breadths.

For a long journey the choice of dogs is a most material point. A team ought always to be well accustomed to draw together; the dogs appear to learn how best to aid each other, by which they are saved much fatigue and their driver much trouble. The dogs of the Jana and Indigirka are preferable to those of the Kolyma on this account, and also because they are used to much longer journeys, both over the ice to New Siberia and over the tundras. A well-loaded sledge requires twelve dogs, but the foremost sledge should have one more, which should be trained as a leader with great and peculiar care, that he may be neither liable to be tempted from the

1 Moss steppes.

route by the scent of game, nor turned aside by any difficulty, but may swim across open places when necessary. The importance of a good leader, even for a single team and in ordinary sledging, has been spoken of.

Dogs that are to be used for a distant journey ought to be treated with great care for a long time beforehand, and to be allowed good food and rest: when this has been done, they usually show the good condition they are in by changing the whole of their coat in summer, which is only partially the case with weak and ill-kept dogs. When winter has set in and the time for travelling approaches, they should be carefully prepared for it. For a fortnight previous to their first journey they must be put on a smaller allowance of hard food, to convert their superfluous fat into firmer flesh. They are at the same time to be exercised, by being driven from ten to at the outside thirty wersts,' halting and resting regularly every four or five wersts. After such a preparation they may be driven as much as one hundred and fifty wersts a-day (or about one hundred miles), without being injured by it, providing the journey is not of very long continuance and the cold is not very great; in such cases the day's journey must be proportionably shortened.

"In order to be more sure," wisely remarks the Russian explorer, "that none of the necessary precautions were omitted, we attended to them ourselves; and previous to our long icejourneys we had the dogs collected at a proper place, about a fortnight before starting, and saw all the rules of diet and

VOL. I.

1 A werst is nearly two-thirds of an English mile.

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exercise observed. The drivers at such times gave them their food raw and cooked on alternate days.

"In winter journeys it is advisable, as far as possible, to allow the dogs fresh frozen fish, thawed and cut into pieces, instead of dried fish; but the latter does perfectly well in spring, when the weather is milder. Ten good frozen herrings are a proper daily allowance for each dog. Dried fish are lighter for transport.

"On first starting, we used to drive about forty wersts a-day along the coast, when the path was good; in returning, we often drove at the rate of sixty wersts, and during the last twenty days, sometimes at that of one hundred wersts a-day. When the weather is very severe the dogs ought to be allowed a day's rest after every two or three; but in milder weather once a-week is sufficient. Sometimes, towards the end of the journey, we travelled several days together, without the dogs being injured by it. Generally speaking, the quantity of rest allowed ought to be in proportion to the strength of the dogs and to the length of time during which they have still to travel. It is most essential to spare them during the early part of the journey; towards its conclusion they may be worked harder, and may even, if necessary, be given less food. When they are in good travelling condition they may very well run for an hour or an hour and a-half in very cold weather, and for three hours in mild weather, without stopping, making a halt of ten or twenty minutes at the expiration of these intervals. The general rule after a day's journey is not to feed them until they have had two or three hours' rest; but if they are very much exhausted, warm food should be given as soon after their arrival as it can be prepared. A small

piece of fish is sometimes given to them during their short halts. On long journeys they are liable to become footsore; and as this will sometimes render them unserviceable for a full month, the greatest care should be taken to avoid it. As soon as any blood is seen on the paws, they should be frequently washed in strong brandy, and if the weather is mild, bathed in sea-water; fur-boots are used at such times with advantage."

When a dog is overworked, it is customary to bleed him in the tail or ears. When on the track of a deer or bear, the dogs will run fifteen wersts, and even more, in an hour; but this must not be regarded as a travelling pace.

"Our dogs were very much exhausted by their long journey, and their feet were so injured by the sharp ice, which had now lost its covering of snow, that their track was marked by spots of blood, and some of them were so lame that we were obliged to put them into sledges to bring them along. The provisions both for them and for ourselves were quite consumed, and nothing could be done except to follow the practice of the country, which is, when dogs are in a very bad condition, to drive them on without stopping, till they reach a place where they can have good food and can rest for some time. We did so, and with much difficulty succeeded in reaching the balagan at the mouth of the Baranika, where we found sufficient provisions to admit of allowing our poor dogs two days' rest."

When the surface of the hard-frozen snow was even the dogs went seven or eight miles an hour. The load of each sledge was about 1000 lbs., besides the driver and one tra

veller. The driver sits sideways on the inside of the sledge with his feet on the runners, ready at any instant to spring off, and holds on by a thong stretched lengthways. He carries a large stick with iron at one end, and bells at the other, for guiding and driving the dogs, and supporting himself.

To guard the dogs from being frozen, the drivers were obliged to put clothing on their bodies, and a kind of boots on their feet, which greatly impeded their running. The intense frost had rendered the snow loose and granular, so that the sledge-runners no longer glided smoothly over its surface.

Wrangell and his companions travelled with dog-sledges about seven hundred and forty-eight miles in twenty-two days, or thirty-four miles per day, and during which time they went several days without food-the stone-foxes and wolverines having destroyed their provision dépôts.

Wrangell speaks frequently of the barking of his dogs at bears, reindeer, wolves, &c. On halts, the dogs were tethered outside to guard against a surprise by bears, and on one occasion an officer, who suddenly and unarmed came on a bear devouring a seal, had his life saved by his dog springing forward and barking loudly. The dogs also towed Wrangell on the rivers; in one place he says, "our boat was towed up the stream by four dogs;" in another, "our boat, which was drawn by twelve dogs, ascended the stream rapidly." During one of their journeys they were all but lost; they came to some weak ice. "Our first care was to examine the possibility of further advance: this, however, could only be done by trusting to the thin ice of the channel, and opinions were divided as to the possibility of its bearing us. I determined to try, and the adventure succeeded better than could have