138 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix 



remained. The rest had been eaten. We searched in all 

 directions for the beasts which had been so plentiful a 

 few days before. They were no longer in the neighbour- 

 hood ; warm weather, I suppose, lured them aloft. The 

 return to camp was rather less light-hearted than the 

 departure had been, but w r e were presently cheered by the 

 sound of a human voice, and peeping forth saw a man 

 approaching over the plain, driving two ponies, and, by 

 some freak of light, looking, as he drove, far " larger than 

 human " on the sunny plain. It proved to be Trevor-Battye 

 come from Sassen Bay. 



He had landed, at ten in the morning, at Starvation Bluff. 

 It was eleven o'clock at night when he came into camp, 

 fairly tired out. On landing he met Pedersen with the 

 ponies, and heard a wonderful tale of our miseries up country, 

 and how we were on the point of dying of starvation — all abso- 

 lute moonshine, but Pedersen was a born romancer. Send- 

 ing the others back to Advent Point with the boat to fetch 

 the sledges, and loading up the ponies with packs, Trevor- 

 Battye hastened, as he supposed, to our relief. His march 

 was no light matter. There were no pack-saddles, and the 

 ponies were not used to carrying loads. They were frightened 

 by the glitter of tins on their backs and the tinkling of spirits 

 in them. The loads came loose, and things tumbled off and 

 had to be cached here and there along the way. At last 

 Bergen set to work kicking and bucking. His load shifted 

 round under his belly, and he seemed to have become fairly 

 frantic ; finally Trevor-Battye cut the lashings in despair, and 

 permitted the burdens to fall on the ground, noting the 

 position of the place, as well as he could in the dense fog 

 that then prevailed. Unfortunately Pedersen, who did the 

 lading, had used the sledge-harness and our climbing-rope to 

 fasten the loads. These were now cut into small pieces — a 

 misfortune that in coming weeks caused us infinite annoy- 



