3 o8 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii 



alike, and are divided from one another by regular, flat- 

 topped, even-sided ridges, like so many railway embankments, 

 end-on to the fjord. 



The north shore is more varied and beautiful. It begins 

 with a wide green valley, debouching west of Coal Mount, and 

 apparently continuing the depression of which Green Har- 

 bour is the north extremity. Looking back now upon Bell 

 Mountain, whose form as beheld from this point of view 

 matches its designation, I thought I had never seen a more 

 splendid scheme of purple colouring— grey purple were water 

 and sky ; the glacier front and slope were of a darker tone, 

 whilst the rocks and low land, Axel Island and all the shore, 

 were so rich as to be almost like a warm black velvet. In 

 the clouds over the snow was an ice-blink, adding an element 

 of weirdness, but the grandeur of the mountain dominated 

 the whole. 



It is needless to catalogue the glaciers and valleys that 

 diversify the north coast. They were of minor interest to 

 me. One of them continues the Coles Bay depression, and 

 all give access to the green and boggy interior, which is only 

 snow-capped at a relatively high level. What I was on the 

 look-out for was what the unimaginative Norwegian hunters 

 call the Stordal, which empties from the north-east into the 

 northernmost bay of the fjord. It was named Ondiepe or 

 Drooge (Shallow or Dry) Rivier by the early Dutch navi- 

 gators, and the name ought to be preserved. Dreary Valley 

 empties into it. It was the mouth of Dreary Valley I was 

 now anxious to see, in order to verify a bearing taken thence 

 on that dreadfully cold June morning, and which I had 

 since imagined (wrongly, as it proved) to have been inac- 

 curate. Rounding a low promontory, the Expres came in 

 sight of the wished-for view, and at that moment her engines 

 broke down. I was not sorry. Notable scenes had been 

 reeled off before our eyes so rapidly, and for so many 



