88 THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 



possibly the conditions of lighting might be altogether 

 different. 



After camping, two of us went out to explore farther. 

 The prospect from the tent was not encouraging, but 

 we might possibly find things better than we expected. 

 We were lucky to find the going so fine as it was on 

 the glacier; we had left our crampons behind at the 

 Butcher's Shop, and if we had found smooth ice, instead 

 of a good, firm snow surf ace, such as we now had, it would 

 have caused us much trouble. Up — still up, among 

 monsters of crevasses, some of them hundreds of feet 

 wide and possibly thousands of feet deep. Our pros- 

 pects of advancing were certainly not bright; as far as 

 we could see in the line of our route one immense ridge 

 towered above another, concealing on their farther sides 

 huge, wide chasms, which all had to be avoided. We 

 went forward — steadily forward — though the way round 

 was both long and troublesome. We had no rope on 

 tliis time, as the irregularities were so plain that it would 

 have been difficult to go into them. It turned out, 

 however, at several points, that the rope would not have 

 been out of place. We were just going to cross over 

 one of the numerous ridges — the surface here looked 

 perfectly whole — wlien a great j^iece broke right under 

 the back half of Ilanssen's ski. We could not deny 

 ourselves the pleasure of glancing down into the hole. 

 The sight was not an inviting one, and we agreed to avoid 

 this place when we came on with our dogs and sledges. 



