chap, in TO SPITSBERGEN 33 



foot. Where the peaks came nearest to us they were rich 

 in colour, and clear in outline and mass, but they stretched 

 away and yet away into fainter and tenderer delicacy of 

 light and tone, till in the remote distance they seemed more 

 impalpable than clouds floating in the rarest air. In other 

 directions great reaches of water led the eye to distances 

 so great and clear that it was as if we beheld all the area 

 of the north at one sweep, with countless mountains, pro- 

 montories, and secret places, all apparently aloof from and 

 forgotten of man. The entire scene was absolutely superb, 

 perfectly harmonious in forms, in lights, and in opalescent 

 colour, pervaded by an unruffled serenity. I turned round 

 and round in silence and enchantment. The Arctic fever 

 seized me at that moment and thrilled through every fibre. 



Leisurely we descended eastward by another route to a 

 second shoulder, where another halt was made, and I lay 

 a-dreaming on a large flat rock, whilst Gregory, more in- 

 dustrious, sketched. Setting forward again towards the 

 steep face, we started down a snow-slope, hoping for a 

 glissade. But it was too hard and steep. Steps had to be 

 carefully trodden, and the direction constantly changed to 

 avoid places where ice came too near the surface. The 

 slope contracted to a couloir. We took to its grassy side, 

 but the ground beneath the thin vegetation was frozen hard 

 and was almost as slippery as naked ice. There was no axe 

 with us, so care was necessary. We let ourselves down by 

 occasional birch bushes, and thus, sometimes taking to the 

 couloir itself, gained the snow avalanche fan below and 

 glissaded to its foot. A beautiful little lake, framed in green, 

 and reflecting the low sunlight, here occupies the position of 

 the foot of the ancient ice-fall that descended this corrie. 

 Leaping fish made rings in the calm water. We scrambled 

 round, and floundered across bogs and streams to the edge 

 of the village, entering it through the main street of a quarter 

 consisting of empty wooden houses and booths, occupied 



