arness of the dog next to him and the harnesses
become a muddle that takes much patience to unravel, not to mention
care lest the whole team should get away with the sledge and its
load and leave one behind to follow on foot at leisure. I never did
get left the whole of this depot journey, but I was often very near
it and several times had only time to seize a strap or a part of the
sledge and be dragged along helter-skelter over everything that came
in the way till the team got sick of galloping and one could struggle
to one's feet again. One gets very wary and wide awake when one has
to manage a team of eleven dogs and a sledge load by oneself, but it
was a most interesting experience, and I had a delightful leader,
'Stareek' by name--Russian for 'Old Man,' and he was the most wise
old man. We have to use Russian terms with all our dogs. 'Ki Ki'
means go to the right, 'Chui' means go to the left, 'Esh to' means lie
down--and the remainder are mostly swear words which mean everything
else which one has to say to a dog team. Dog driving like this in the
orthodox manner is a very different thing to the beastly dog driving
we perpetrated in the Discovery days. I got to love all my team and
they got to know me well, and my old leader even now, six months
after I have had anything to do with him, never fails to come and
speak to me whenever he sees me, and he knows me and my voice ever
so far off. He is quite a ridiculous 'old man' and quite the nicest,
quietest, cleverest old dog I have ever come across. He looks in face
as if he knew all the wickedness of all the world and all its cares
and as if he were bored to death by them. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 13, _p_. 111.--_February_ 15. There were also innumerable
subsidences of the surface--the breaking of crusts over air spaces
under them, large areas of dropping 1/4 inch or so with a hushing sort
of noise or muffled report.--My leader Stareek, the nicest and wisest
old dog in both teams, thought there was a rabbit under the crust
every time one gave way close by him and he would jump sideways with
both feet on the spot and his nose in the snow. The action was like a
flash and never checked the team--it was most amusing. I have another
funny little dog, Mukaka, small but very game and a good worker. He
is paired with a fat, lazy and very greedy black dog, Nugis by name,
and in every march this sprightly little Mukaka will once or twice
notice that Nugis is not pulling