i 5 2 SPITSBEEGEN chap, x 



run up the bay. I therefore decided to stay on the shore, 

 and wait at least twenty-four hours for the boat. I had no 

 sleeping-bag, but as the night was fine that mattered little. 

 I was more disconcerted by the fact that our only food 

 consisted of three odd fragments of Emergency Food and 

 six small sticks of chocolate. 



"This supply I resolved to keep till the next afternoon, 

 when I intended to share it with Pedersen, and, on the 

 strength of it, march back to Waterfall Camp. I tried to 

 shoot some birds, but after knocking the feathers out of an 

 eider drake at a distance twenty yards too great for a kill, 

 I had no other chance of a shot. There were, it is true, a 

 couple of snow-buntings resting on the cliff, but they sang to 

 me so merrily that I could not kill them. 



" For once in a way the sun shone gloriously, and I had 

 also the good luck of a magnificent view. At the head of 

 the bay was the broad Post Glacier discharging icebergs 

 into the fjord; on the shore opposite me rose the vertical 

 stratified cliffs of Temple Mountain. The enjoyment of the 

 scenery helped me to forget that it was cold, and that the 

 water of two rivers and a dozen brooks was gradually 

 evaporating from my clothes. At midnight I wrapped 

 myself in a sledge cover and tried to sleep. But the air, 

 though delightfully crisp and bracing when I was moving, 

 was so chilled by floe and glacier, that I was soon far too 

 cold to sleep. When my teeth commenced to chatter, I 

 thought it time to go for a walk, as I dreaded another bout 

 of fever. Just as I was preparing to start, at two a.m., I faintly 

 heard three shots fired in rapid succession. I woke Pedersen, 

 who, having his sleeping-bag, had been sound asleep since 

 nine o'clock. We both heard a fourth shot, to which we 

 replied by one as a signal, and then I sent Pedersen in 

 search. The suggestion of food was enough to start the 

 hungry hunter in all haste. By this stroke of luck I felt 



