chap, i INTRODUCTORY 7 



the interior, an indifference perhaps characteristic of yachts- 

 men and seagoing folk in general. A German visitor, for 

 instance, who climbed to a high point on Mount Lindstrom, 

 near Coles Bay, described the view inland to the south as 

 being over an " unabsehbare weisse Flache." Other writers 

 spoke of the hills in the same neighbourhood as being the 

 fronts of a great plateau. Only Mons. Rabot and Herr G. 

 Nordenskjold gave truthful and intelligible accounts of the 

 kind of country they saw. Various writers spoke of having 

 landed and advanced up valleys in pursuit of reindeer ; but 

 it seems never to have occurred to any one of them to note 

 the bearing of the valley's direction, still less the position 

 and number of side-valleys. When they added estimates of 

 the distance they advanced inland, to which it is possible 

 to apply tests, the estimated distances always turn out to 

 be ludicrously exaggerated. 



Thus it came to pass that, after taking the best advice 

 we could obtain, we equipped ourselves with Nansen sledges, 

 and ponies to draw them. It was believed that we should 

 have to drag our things for a few miles over soft bogs, and 

 that then we could find smooth areas of snow over which 

 advance would be rapid and easy. It was the central portion 

 of the island that we were to explore, the northern and 

 southern portions being supposed to be wholly buried under 

 great ice-sheets, though, as we afterwards proved, there is 

 much mountainous country and many green valleys in the 

 neighbourhood of Wijde Bay. In the central portion of the 

 island many valleys were recorded as penetrating the hills. 

 By one or other of these we imagined it would be easy to 

 gain access to some snow-covered plateau continuous to the 

 east coast. Even Mons. Rabot thought we should have to 

 cross such a plateau east of Peak Milne-Edwards. 



We had not been a week on the island of Spitsbergen 

 before we discovered the utter unsuitability of Nansen sledges 



