chap, xvi BY SASSEN BAY 221 



it is merely fed by avalanches from the sides of the corrie. 

 At one point this little glacier has to pass over a lower bed 

 of hyperite, some two feet thick, which protrudes from the 

 softer masses of the hill-side. Over this bed it goes in a 

 ridiculous little ice-fall, almost pathetic in its mimicry of the 

 grand cascades of ice that dignify its greater contemporaries. 



We arrived in camp thoroughly fatigued. The fact may 

 as well be put on record. A four hours' walk had been 

 quite enough for us — indeed, more than enough. Energy 

 was barely left to cook dinner and crawl into sleeping-bags. 

 In Spitsbergen all suffered in this way, yet we were not a 

 weakly set. The reason was not easy to find. Sometimes 

 we said it was the food, but change of food made no 

 difference. Sometimes we thought it was mere slowness in 

 coming into condition, but the passing weeks and the con- 

 tinual exercise brought no improvement. We were always 

 slack, intellectually as well as physically. It was a labour 

 to write, a labour to settle down to any work whatever. 

 Yet the air seemed brisk, and came either over the snows 

 or the sea. Purer air can scarcely be found. Though 

 pure, however, it was certainly relaxing, and made life 

 laborious. It possessed none of the stimulus of alpine 

 breezes. 



There was still no sign of any boat, and now the utmost 

 limit of Trevor-Battye's time was spent. Why had he not 

 come ? We started at every sound without, thinking we 

 heard footsteps on the beach, or calls from the sea — all 

 fictions fancy framed. During the night, indeed, visitors 

 came to our camp in search of meat, gulls that pulled the 

 reindeer joints about, and then a fox. Gregory was on the 

 alert, and drove the gulls away, whilst he shot the fox a 

 yard or two from my tent ; but I slept on through it all, 

 and did not even hear the report of the rifle fired so close 

 to my head. 



