118 THE NORTH POLE 



Lake Hazen region, with a sledge and eight dogs, 

 after musk-oxen and reindeer. It had been planned 

 that they should hunt there until joined by other 

 Eskimos from the ship, after she reached Cape Sheri- 

 dan or Porter Bay. But in the absence of snow, the 

 going was too rough for even a light sledge, and the 

 Eskimos returned. 



At last, a little before midnight on the 2d, we got 

 out of the impasse at Lincoln Bay, where we had been 

 held up for ten days. The cables were taken in, and 

 the Roosevelt, steaming first forward and then astern, 

 extricated herself from the shore pack. We felt 

 as men must feel who are released from prison. There 

 was a narrow lane of open water following the shore, 

 and along that course we steamed, rounding Cape 

 Union about half an hour before midnight. 



But we were soon held up again by the ice, a little 

 below Black Cape, a dark cone-shaped mountain 

 standing alone, on the eastern side washed by the 

 waters of the sea, on the west separated by deep val- 

 leys from the adjacent mountains. It was a scene 

 of indescribable grandeur, for the coast was lined for 

 miles with bergs, forced shoreward, broken and tilted 

 at right angles. At Black Cape we had made half 

 the distance between our former position at Lincoln 

 Bay and the longed-for shelter at Cape Sheridan. 



As we made fast against the land ice, a sixty- 

 foot thick fragment of a floe was driven with frightful 

 force up on the shore a little to the north of us. Had 

 we been in the way of it — but a navigator of these 

 channels must not dwell too much on such contingen- 

 cies. 



