158 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi 



Bay, where strange lights played on the water, and gleamed 

 up under the mist, or at the head of the Sassendal, where 

 Rabot Glacier glimmered like oxidised silver set in ridges 

 of bronze. The brown plain between was always mysterious, 

 with quick alterations in apparent size, whilst now and again 

 eddying cloud-columns dipped down on to it, dissolved, and 

 disappeared. 



At 7.45 P.M. (July 13) we finally quitted Bucking-horse 

 Camp, leaving a pile of provisions, geological specimens, tins 

 of spirit, and other supplies to await the return. Two skuas 

 remained in charge, greedily picking the backbone of a rein- 

 deer. They are very wide-awake, these skuas, and not in 

 the least shy. A number of fulmar petrels came along, 

 bending in the direction we were taking. Their swift, easy 

 motion and strong confidence of wing are always a delight 

 to behold. Overhead the cloud-roof was denser than ever, 

 but it was poised high above the tops of all the peaks, and 

 cast on the whole landscape that dark rich pall of colour 

 which so dignifies these valleys, diminishing indeed their 

 appearance of breadth, and shortening distances, but at the 

 same time raising the bald hills into the likeness of mighty 

 mountains. 



Descending the last slope below camp, we trailed along 

 the plain some distance from the valley side, thus winning 

 the best travelling ground we had yet seen in Spitsbergen, 

 and gaining a view far back over Sassen Bay into the hills 

 behind it. There a large valley, running inland, north- 

 westward from Skans Bay, prolongs the Sassendal depression 

 far off towards Dickson Bay, whilst the hills on either side 

 of it imitate the forms of Temple Mountain on the right and 

 Sticky Keep on the left. As usual I was soon alone in the 

 bare valley, out of sight of the others. It seemed barer and 

 more uncanny than ever this gloomy evening. A strange cry 

 came from over the river, like the cry of an abandoned child. 



