chap, v CAIRN CAMP 77 



equipped, but now we knew that the sledges were, for 

 the purpose in hand, mere costly ineptitudes. They were 

 breaking down at all points, the runners so scraped and 

 torn away that it seemed probable they would vanish in 

 two more marches. To contemplate our problems was 

 mere waste of time. They had to be solved by action, so 

 about four P.M. we set forth, descending from our camp pro- 

 montory on to the wide stone fan at the mouth of Bolter 

 Valley. 



If the previous march was bad, this was infinitely worse, 

 for the reason that the farther we went inland the more 

 backward was the season, and the more frequent, deep, 

 and utterly rotten and sodden was the snow. The worst of 

 it was that we might better have stayed where we were. 

 Our present plan was to form a camp at some suitable 

 point inland, whence we might make expeditions in various 

 directions, and more especially one over to Low Sound. 

 Pedersen, repeating the traditions of reindeer hunters, said 

 that Bolter Valley led to Coles Bay, and that the next (Fox 

 Valley) was the first that led towards Low Sound. In this, 

 as in everything else he told us, he was inaccurate, the 

 fact being that the reindeer hunters know little about the 

 interior beyond a very few miles from the coast. Bolter 

 Valley divides a short way up, as, but for the fog, we should 

 have seen. One branch goes almost due south to Bolter 

 Pass, and so to the valley of the Shallow River and Low 

 Sound ; the other leads west over the plateau to the Coles 

 Bay Valley. From Bolter Camp we might have explored 

 both routes. As it was, we did the best thing we knew of, 

 and went pegging ahead up the left bank of Advent Vale, 

 which here makes a great bend to the east. 



A few minutes' trudge brought us to the edge of the 

 many-channelled Bolter River, now in full flood with the 

 melting of the snows in the large basins it drains. A man 



