chap xix AT ADVENT POINT 259 



When the die was thrown, Bergen cast a shoe. Wonder- 

 ful that none had been cast sooner ! Now it was a matter 

 of no importance, but how troublesome it might have been 

 had it happened on the way to Coles Bay. As events proved, 

 the Coles Bay expedition would have been valueless, for 

 weather continued so bad, and clouds so low, that nothing 

 but a route survey could have been made. The clouds some- 

 times lifted a little for an hour, and showed the hills all 

 white with deeper new snow than we had before seen, but 

 they only settled down lower and thicker than before, till 

 fog even enveloped the tents, and snow fell upon us. The 

 changeful wind blew this way and that, always seeking the 

 entrance of the tents, pitch them how we might. It was a 

 gruesome time in camp. 



Gregory, Garwood, and Ted took advantage of the Express 

 preliminary trip to Danes Island, to be carried by her as 

 far as Green Harbour, there to collect fossil-plants till we 

 came for them on the northward way. 



There was a singular lack of the sense of the passage 

 of time as the days went by in camp, for it was impossible 

 to do anything methodically. Evil weather made packing 

 an intermittent occupation, whilst it was too chilly to adhere 

 long to any sedentary work. Nothing was to be accom- 

 plished in the neighbouring hills amid the all-obliterating 

 fog. Trevor-Battye and I drifted asunder in the matter of 

 sleep till we came to playing Box and Cox, the dinner of each 

 being the other's breakfast. Efforts to come round together 

 were hopelessly unsuccessful. Long talks with Pedersen, in 

 our mixed common language, were perhaps the most interest- 

 ing events of these featureless days, for he is a mine of in- 

 accurate Spitsbergen traditions, which he only divulges under 

 close cross-examination. 



One day he refused tea, saying that it was a Russian 

 drink ; Norwegians, he said, drink coffee. He constantly 



