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dogs which became every moment more
manifest extended to our own party.
The instinct of a sledge dog makes
him perfectly aware of unsafe ice and
I know nothing more subduing to a man
than the warnings of an unseen danger
through a dumb beast.

We had to keep moving, for we
could not camp in the gale now howling
around as so that we could barely
hold down the sledge, [when] but we
moved with caution feeling one way
with tent poles, which I had divided
among our party. Slowly came to my
ear a suspicion soon ripening to a certainty
that a low murmur, which I had for
some time heard was the sea. Hardly
had I sung out "turn the dogs"! before
a wreath of wet frost smoke swept over
us and the sea with a great fringe
of foam was seen about 1/4 of a mile
ahead.

This told us well enough where
we were but instead of a direct retreat
I determined to run to the S.W. where
I knew that the ice was firm and
where Godsend Id would give as a
shelter. The march was a frightful
one, worse in my eyes than Von
Wrangells "break up" off the River
Kolyma
. The seething boiling surf
line so encroached on us that we
could feel the undulation of the ice.
Often we would run the gaunlet between
lanes of closing ice the hummock
walls closing on either side like the
[sides] closing walls of the Vinition [Venetian] dungeon.
Again we were painfully labouring
over crushed ice areas : of miles in diam

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