heir warm coats, happier
far than their human fellow-sufferer, who knew that for him there must be
no rest that night if he would see the light of another day.

Having climbed the hill, I walked along its crest for some distance, till
suddenly I again lost my footing, and shot down the hill, as far as I can
judge, on the opposite side into another ravine. This was, if possible,
a more fearful glissade than my previous one; it was a very precipitous
place, and I was whirled round and round in my descent, sometimes head
first, sometimes feet first, and again sideways, rolling over and over,
till at last, by clutching at the gorse bushes, and digging my feet into
the snow as before, I once more managed to check my wild career, and
bring myself to a stand; but I had lost my hat and a pair of warm fur
gloves, which I had on over a pair of old dogskins. The loss of these
fur gloves proved very serious to me, as my hands soon began to get so
numbed with the cold, that they were comparatively useless.

At the bottom of the ravine into which I had now fallen, I found myself
again involved in snow drifts, and had still more difficulty than before
in getting out of them. I had tumbled into a very soft one far over my
head, and had to fight, and scratch, and burrow for a long time before I
could extricate myself, and became more exhausted than at any other time
during the night. I only ventured to take my brandy very sparingly,
wishing to husband it as much as possible, and there was but a very tiny
drop left. My hands, as I have said, were so numbed with cold as to be
nearly useless. I had the greatest difficulty in holding the flask, or
in eating snow for refreshment, and could hardly get my hands to my mouth
for the masses of ice which had formed upon my whiskers, and which were
gradually developed into a long crystal beard, hanging half way to my
waist. Icicles likewise had formed about my eyes and eyebrows, which I
frequently had to break off, and my hair had frozen into a solid block of
ice. After the loss of my hat, my hair must, I suppose, have become
filled with snow, while I was overhead in the drifts. Probably this was
partially melted by the warmth of my head, and subsequently converted
into ice by the intense frost. Large balls of ice also formed upon my
cuffs, and underneath my knees, which encumbered me very much in walking,
and I had continually to break them off. I tried to supply the place of
my hat by