328 THE "DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. 



beasts at this present moment. The wretches would 

 eat ns up if we gave them the least chance. Knorr 

 stumbled among the pack yesterday, while feeding 

 them, and, had not McDonald pounced upon them on 

 the instant, I believe they would have made a meal 

 of him before he could rise. 



The hour is exactly midnight, and, for the first 

 time since starting, I write in the open air. The tem- 

 perature is only one degree below zero, and a more 

 beautiful sunshine never was beheld. This vast sea 

 of whiteness, this great wilderness of glittering peaks, 

 possesses a stern, quiet sublimity that is wonderfully 

 imposing. The mountains before us, unhke those of 

 the Greenland coast, stand up in multiplied lines of 

 heaven-piercing cones, looking like giant stacks of 

 cannon-balls, sprinkled with snow. The midnight sun 

 streams over them from the north, and softens their 

 outlines through tinted vapors which float from the 

 eastward. Oh! that I were across the barrier that 

 separates me from that land of my desires ! Those 

 mountains are my " delectable mountains," — the 

 fleecy clouds which rest upon them are the flocks of 

 the " city " of my ambitious hopes — the mystic sea 

 which I am seeking through these days of weariness 

 and toil. 



I have had some fine sights and excellent solar 

 bearings from a position determined by solar altitude, 

 and am now firmly convinced that a Sound opens 

 westward from Smith Sound, overlooked by me in 

 1854 ; and that the whole coast of Grinnell Land was 

 placed by me too far south. 



May 5th. 



A perfectly killing day, and I have little progress 

 to Tecord. Our affairs look rather blue. Jensen 



