64 SPITSBERGEN chap, v 



mare of very phlegmatic disposition who soon made herself 

 quite at home. Bergen was a nervous beast, and signified 

 his dissatisfaction with his new surroundings by presently 

 breaking away and careering over the flat in wild terror. 

 When recaptured, he was trembling and foaming with fright — 

 a bad beginning. I noticed, lying on the beach, a small sledge, 

 the property of the winterers, which Klaus Thue had made 

 out of boards and barrel-irons. He gladly sold it to me for 

 a few kroner, and it served us well, being far better suited 

 for inland work than the costly machines we brought with 

 us from London. Had we then known what we soon after- 

 wards learned, we should have sent back to Tromso for a few 

 more of the same stout pattern. Garwood at once harnessed 

 Spits to this sledge and drew our goods on it to camp. She 

 settled down to the work and did it well. 



Our preparations were watched with a somewhat embar- 

 rassing interest by the steamer's passengers, who landed one 

 by one and took snap-shots at us with their cameras, not 

 always immortalising our most dignified moments. One 

 passenger, who came with us all the way from Trond- 

 hjem in order to see Herr Andree, and had never once 

 quitted the ship, now landed and gave infinite delight to 

 every one. His costume was most picturesque — long boots, 

 a long ulster, a great fur cap, a revolver slung round his 

 waist, a horn over one shoulder, and a camera over the 

 other. The horn, he explained, would be valuable if he were 

 to be lost on the mountains, whose gentlest sloping foot he 

 never approached. He walked up and down on the beach 

 with dramatic gait, then turned towards the bay and 

 solemnly fired off all the chambers of his revolver, after 

 which he blew a blast on the horn. Then he fired off his 

 camera in all directions, and so returned to the ship and 

 disappeared. 



Later on in the season, I am told, though I did not see 



