CHAPTER XI 



£ULMAR VALLEY 



WE were now supplied with strong sledges and needful 

 food. The onward way lay open ; but both Gregory 

 and the ponies needed rest, so the start had to be postponed 

 twenty-four hours. Garwood and I used the interval to 

 revisit Brent Pass. The walk was dull. We followed the 

 right bank of the Esker Valley and had to wade many knee- 

 deep streams. A marked change had come over the place 

 since our former visit. Snow-beds and snow-bogs had 

 entirely disappeared. The land was drier and harder. A 

 distance that had been covered in the most laborious march 

 we made, which utterly exhausted the ponies and wearied 

 us, now only required two hours or so of steady plodding. 

 Under any circumstances we could cover in a day (if un- 

 loaded, and with no survey or geological work to be done) 

 three times the amount of ground that ponies can drag 

 sledges over. Hence the apparent slowness of our progress. 

 Clearly by the middle of July conditions are much improved 

 for travel in the interior of Spitsbergen. 



The day was cloudy, with heavy and rather high clouds, 

 which cast a pall of gloom on the dreary landscape. Yet 

 there were fine effects to reward an observant eye. A soft 

 grey cloud lying on the Trident dyed its precipice-headed 

 bluffs with a purple, so rich and deep, that it seemed more 

 than any mere light and shadow could produce. Distances 

 seen beneath the cloudy roof showed continual and most 

 beautiful changes, as, for instance, down towards Sassen 



