328 NEAREST THE POLE 



face of a wind from the east which burned our faces 

 Hke a sirocco. 



The first march took us to a magnificent cape (Cape 

 Bridgman), at which the northern face of the land 

 trends away to the southeast. This cape is in the same 

 latitude as Cape Washington. The next two car- 

 ried us down the east coast to the 83d parallel. In 

 the first of these we crossed the mouth of a large fiord 

 penetrating for a long distance in a southwesterly 

 (true) direction. On the next, in a fleeting glimpse 

 through the fog, I saw a magnificent mountain of 

 peculiar contour, which I recognised as the peak seen 

 by me in 1895, from the summit of the interior ice-cap 

 south of Independence Bay, rising proudly above the 

 land to the north. This mountain was then named 

 by me Mt. Wistar. Finally the density of the fog 

 compelled a halt on the extremity of a low point, com- 

 posed entirely of fine glacial drift, and which I judged 

 to be a small island in the mouth of a large fiord. 



From my camp of the previous night I had observed 

 this island (?) and beyond and over it a massive block 

 of a mountain, forming the opposite cape of a large 

 intervening fiord, and beyond that again another 

 distant cape. Open water was clearly visible a few 

 miles off the coast, while not far out dark water clouds 

 reached away to the southeast. 



At this camp I remained two nights and a day, 

 waiting for the fog to lift. Then, as there seemed to 

 be no indication of its doing so, and my provisions were 

 exhausted, I started on my return journey at 3 130 a. m. 

 on the 2 2d of May, after erecting a cairn, in which I 

 deposited the following record: 



