324 NEAREST THE POLE 



The next day there was a continuous lane of water, 

 loo feet wide, along the ice-foot by our camp, and the 

 space in front of the cliffs was again open water. We 

 crossed just in time. 



Up to Cape Stanton we had to hew a continuous road 

 along the ice-foot. After this the going was much 

 better to Cape Bryant. Off this section of the coast 

 the pack was in constant motion, and an almost con- 

 tinuous lane of water extended along the ice-foot. A 

 long search at Cape Bryant finally discovered the re- 

 mains of Lockwood's cache and cairn, which had been 

 scattered by bears. Three marches, mostly in thick 

 weather, and over alternating hummocky blue ice and 

 areas of deep snow, brought us at i a. m. of May 4th 

 to Cape North (the northern point of Cape Britannia 

 Island). From this camp, after a sleep, I sent back 

 two more Eskimos and the twelve poorest dogs, leaving 

 Henson, one Eskimo, and myself, with three sledges 

 and sixteen dogs, for the permanent advance party. 



From Cape North a ribbon of young ice on the so- 

 called tidal crack, which extends along this coast, gave 

 us a good lift nearly across Nordenskjold Inlet. Then 

 it became unsafe, and we climbed a heavy rubble barrier 

 to the old floe ice inside, which we followed to Cape 

 Benet, and camped. Here we were treated to another 

 snowstorm. 



Another strip of young ice gave us a passage nearly 

 across Mascart Inlet, until, under Cape Payer, I found 

 it so broken up that two of the sledges and nearly all 

 of the dogs got into the water before we could escape 

 from it. Then a pocket of snow, thigh and waist deep, 

 over rubble ice under the lee of the Cape stalled us 



