3 io SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii 



heap was about knee-deep, and lay just where the motion 

 of the boat had rolled its component parts. The confusion 

 was not unpicturesque. I did not at this time learn what 

 we were afterwards told, that the engines had been all along 

 in an extremely " dicky " state. The boiler had not been 

 cleaned for a long time, and was thickly encrusted. Various 

 bearings were coming loose, and there were many other 

 matters requiring attention. The fact that we were not 

 paralysed in the midst of the ice is not the smallest 

 piece of good luck that attended our exceptionally lucky 

 voyage. 



In due time the machine began working again, and the 

 boat advanced over the now glassy fjord. Quite small waves, 

 rendering uneven the surface of the sea, are large enough 

 to hide from view birds floating or flying low beyond a very 

 short radius from the deck of a little boat. But when the 

 water is calm, the range of vision for objects upon it 

 widens, and a small disturbance of its smoothness, even at 

 a great distance, immediately attracts attention. Now the 

 whole visible area seemed alive with sea-fowl, floating, rising, 

 or diving. Fulmars were specially in evidence, and I noticed 

 that, when rising off the water, they run rapidly along the 

 surface, striking it hard with alternate feet in a manner 

 adopted by no other bird in these regions. 



After approaching as close to the mouth of the Shallow 

 River as we could without going aground, and when all the 

 information I required was obtained, we bent away south- 

 ward under the end of Sundewall Mount, and turned 

 up the extreme easterly branch of the fjord. The scenery 

 became grander, a delightful harmony in blue with just one 

 white curtain of mist, let down over the hill crests and the 

 deep indigo lower slopes from the blue clouds to the blue 

 water, whose still surface was broken by the slow emer- 

 gence of many seals. The skipper shot one, so fat that 



