372 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



early the morning of December 18th that we should 

 start that day for Danish Greenland. We had ex- 

 pected to start earlier, but delay in the post from Etah, 

 and a heavy wind and snowstorm, had kept us to the 

 boat and the station. We had been ready for over a 

 week to start at the word from Rasmussen that he 

 wished to leave. 



Rasmussen had spent the month of November bear- 

 hunting on Melville Bay, across which we would sledge 

 from Cape York to the settlements in Danish Green- 

 land. He had come back reporting good sledging, and 

 much bear meat cached along the way, conditions fa- 

 vorable to a rapid and easy traverse of the long ice-fields 

 to cross the bay. He felt sure that we should spend 

 Christmas in Tasiusak, the northernmost Danish station, 

 and New Y^ear's in Upernavik, the home of the governor 

 of the northernmost colonial district. 



Soon after his messenger brought us word that we 

 should start that day, he himself came aboard the ship 

 to see that all our arrangements were complete, and 

 to get our baggage. The captain of the ship and his 

 oflficers had arranged a farewell breakfast for us, and 

 our departure was delayed until this had been eaten 

 and all farewells said. 



Six sledges were to form our train to the Danish 

 colonies, but when we left North Star Bay, ^ve others 

 set out with us to go as far as Parker Snow Bay to get 

 some coal that the Cluett had left for Rasmussen's 

 station the preceding summer. Among these five 

 sledges was that of Doctor Wulff, the ill-fated Swedish 

 ethnologist and botanist who has since perished of 

 starvation in the far North. It was his first experience 

 at driving dogs, and that night, when we made camp 



