188 THE PARRY ISLANDS 



further, until, after falling a height of altogether at 

 least a hundred feet, it reached the slopes by the river, 

 and was shot by the impetus right across the river-ice 

 and a good way up the other side. And the dogs ? 

 When the bear dashed against the mountain they 

 sprang up like rubber balls, described a large curve, 

 and with stiffened legs continued the journey on their 

 own account, falling with a loud thud on to the hardly 

 packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they 

 were on their legs again in a moment, and set off as 

 fast as they could go across the river after the bear. 

 Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came 

 running up, but when they were driven away from the 

 carcase, they lay down again to await their turn. I 

 hurried back to camp to fetch the dog harness ; we 

 put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen, 

 and set off. The dogs knew well enough that this 

 meant food for them, and the nearer we came to camp 

 the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on the 

 carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and 

 forwards, on this new kind of conveyance I made my 

 entrance into camp, in the light spring night." But 

 bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which, 

 with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and 

 foxes, and stoats and lemmings, seals and walruses, 

 narwhals and white whales, represented the Arctic 

 mammalia. 



The most singular experience met with was perhaps 

 the sledge journey through the ice tunnel on the return 

 across the Simmons Peninsula in 1900. Descending a 

 valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup 

 and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a 



