ABSTRACT
These last days have been extremely agitating for me. Not only were there the difficulties of commissariat, the surprises which the glaciers might spring upon me (and I knew beforehand, from the Workmans' description, that the glaciers were by no means easy, in fact very difficult, to cross), and the anxieties about the near future (when I shall have got off the glaciers with my 60 men, my very scanty supplies, and a long, difficult journey before arriving at a village)—but there was added to these bad weather. I do not think Miss Kalau notices it, and the men even less, but my anxiety is such that my hours of sleep get less and less. Being forced to stop contrary to plan may mean exhaustion of supplies and burtse; to press on at all costs, in spite of mist and snow, may mean losing ourselves in the flat immensities of these glacier-heads, which seem endless, or in some labyrinth of séracs and crevasses. Last night I only rested one hour: at 10 o'clock yesterday evening I had already begun putting my head out of the tent to examine the signs of the weather, and I did so again several times during my long sleepless night.
