66 SPITSBERGEN chap, v 



where we saw so much drift ice, and so up the west coast. 

 When Baron de Geer was in Spitsbergen before, at the same 

 time of year, there was no ice in this fjord, and the snow 

 was melted off the hills to a considerable height. Now 

 snow was lying thickly down to the very water's edge, and 

 two-thirds of Advent Bay was frozen up, as indeed were all 

 the other arms of Ice Fjord. 



All this day (June 21) clouds hung low above us, but 

 upon Advent Vale, the valley at the head of the bay, the 

 sun continuously shone, leading us to the mistaken belief 

 that the climate of the interior might be better than that 

 of the coast. Attracted by the brightness, Trevor-Battye 

 and Stndley started for a walk inland, up the west bank of 

 the bay and the river at its head, nearly as far as where we 

 afterwards pitched, Bolter Camp. They suffered many of 

 the discomforts we afterwards experienced, and found no 

 reindeer, no new birds, nothing that in any way pleased 

 them. Studley described the country as one botched in the 

 making and chucked aside unfinished. For his part, he said, 

 he was "dead off it," and would get away the first chance 

 he had. Trevor-Battye was not much less displeased. He 

 came to study the birds of the country, and hoped to find 

 much new matter of interest away from the coast, but he 

 found nothing, and saw little promise of finding anything 

 novel. Most of the birds of Spitsbergen haunt the coast, 

 and there build their nests. 



Meanwhile Garwood and I worked away at the baggage, 

 helped by Ted in the intervals of sketching. We sneezed 

 and shivered and pitied ourselves between whiles, but the 

 work progressed. Gregory suffered worst from the chill, 

 and became visibly unwell, so that he had to take to his 

 sleeping-bag and feed on slops. This was the death struggle 

 of a colony of African malarial germs within him. They 

 were presently destroyed, and he became as strong as any 



