388 Chapter VI. 



kept the bears going, so that he could not get within 

 range, and his chase ended as fruitlessly as mine. 



"Has good luck abandoned us ? I had plumed myself 

 on our never having shot at a single bear without 

 bagging it, but to-day . . . . ! Odd that we should get 

 a visit from four bears on one day, after having seen 

 nothing of them for three months ! Does it signify- 

 something ? Have we got near the land in the north- 

 west which I have so long expected ? There seems to 

 be change in the air. An observation the day before 

 yesterday gave 8o c 15' N. lat., the most northerly we 

 have had yet. 



"Sunday, April i5th. So we are in the middle ot 

 April ! What a ring of joy in that word, a wellspring 

 of happiness ! Visions of spring rise up in the soul at its 

 very mention a time when doors and windows are 

 thrown wide open to the spring air and sun, and the 

 dust of winter is blown away ; a time when one can no 

 longer sit still, but must perforce go out of doors to 

 inhale the perfume of wood and field and fresh-dug 

 earth, and behold the fjord, free from ice, sparkling 

 in the sunlight. What an inexhaustible fund of the 

 awakening joys of nature does that word April contain ! 

 But here here that is not to be found. True, the sun 

 shines loner and bright, but its beams fall not on forest 



o o 



or mountain or meadow, but only on the dazzling white- 

 ness of the fresh-fallen snow. Scarcely does it entice one 

 out from one's winter retreat. This is not the time of 



