68 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 



and the whole phenomenon has disappeared with the 

 same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and 

 gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over 

 everything. This was the aurora of the coming storm 

 the aurora in its fullest splendour." 



Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first 

 visited, and, on the 26th, Payer, with six men, started 

 on his main journey up Austria Sound, reaching 

 Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then 

 proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf 

 Land. Off the southern promontory of this were 

 innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in height, 

 cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Midden- 

 dorf Glacier, with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards 

 the north-west ; layers of snow and rents in the sea-ice, 

 caused by icebergs falling in, filled the intervening 

 space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were 

 continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and 

 clothes with sea-water. One of the men was sent on 

 ahead to find a path by which the glacier might be 

 climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit 

 was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow, 

 three of those at the lower part needing but a slight 

 movement to detach the severed portions and form 

 them into bergs. 



While resting on the glacier looking down on the 

 semicircular terminal precipice and the gleaming host 

 of bergs which filled the indentations of the coast, one 

 of the men reported that his foot was swollen and 

 ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe 

 Island. Just as the others were setting off, the snow 

 gave way beneath the sledge, and down fell Zaninovich, 



