78 THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 



concealed something. It could not be a storm, or it 

 would have been already upon us. But we went on 

 and on, and nothing came. Our day's march was 

 eighteen and a half miles. 



I see that my diary for November 28 does not begin 

 very promisingly: "Fog, fog — and again fog. Also 

 fine falling snow, which makes the going impossible. 

 Poor beasts, they have toiled hard to get the sledges 

 forward to-day." But the day did not turn out so 

 badly after all, as we worked our way out of this 

 uncertainty and found out what was behind the pitch- 

 dark clouds. During the forenoon the sun came 

 through and thrust aside the fog for a while ; and there, 

 to the south-east, not many miles away, lay an immense 

 mountain mass. From this mass, right across our 

 course, ran a great, ancient glacier; the sun shone 

 down upon it and showed us a surface full of huge 

 irregularities. On the side nearest to the mountain these 

 disturbances were such that a hasty glance was enough 

 to show us the impossibility of advancing that way. 

 But right in our line of route — straight on to the glacier 

 — it looked, as far as we could see, as though we could 

 get along. The fog came and went, and we had to 

 take advantage of the clear intervals to get our bear- 

 ings. It would, no doubt, have been better if we could 

 have halted, set up our tent, and waited for decently 

 clear weather, so that we might survey the ground at 

 our ease and choose the best way. Going forward 



