One of them was lame from an inflammation in the knee.

Heavy rain commenced at midnight and continued without intermission until five in the morning, when it was succeeded by snow on the wind changing to north-west, which soon increased to a violent gale.

As we had nothing to eat and were destitute of the means of making a fire, we remained in our beds all the day, but the covering of our blankets was insufficient to prevent us from feeling the severity of the frost and suffering inconvenience from the drifting of the snow into our tents.

There was no abatement of the storm next day; our tents were completely frozen and the snow had drifted around them to a depth of three feet, and even in the inside there was a covering of several inches on our blankets.

Our suffering from cold in a comfortless canvas tent in such weather with the temperature at 20 degrees and without fire will easily be imagined; it was however less than that which we felt from hunger.
The morning of the 7th cleared up a little but the wind was still strong and the weather extremely cold.