CHAPTER Vll. 



RETURN BY SLEDGES TO CLAVERIInG ISLAND, AND DISCOVERY 

 OF THE TIROLER FJORD. 27tH OCTOBER TO 4tH 



NOVEMBER, 1869. 



Autumn the best time for sleJge excursions. — Skating journey. — Dr. 

 Copeland's bear adventure.— Walrus. — Cape Borlase Warren. — 

 East side of Clavering Island. — Tiroler Fjord discovered on 29th 

 October. — Splendid Aurora Borealis. — Night-quarters on an Arctic 

 journey. — Glaciers. — Rich vegetation. — On Clavering Island. — 

 Hemarkable glacier movement. — Erratic ice-blocks. — The Green- 

 land glacier-ice. — Return to quarters of 28th October. — Chased 

 by a walrus. — Return to ship on 4th November, 1869. 



No more exciting situation can be imagined tlian that 

 of an explorer in unknown lands, more especially when 

 nature seems to have surrounded them with an impene- 

 trable wall, and the earth is as yet untrodden by the foot 

 of man. The Arctic pioneers of England and America 

 have, in their voyages of discovery, nearly always come 

 in contact with mankind, if only those of the lowest grade 

 of civilization. The fast dog-sledges of the Esquimaux 

 — this slowly-dying-out people (often most incorrectly 

 classed with the Mogul race) — seem to form, in the 

 account of these explorers, as great a factotum of life as 

 the art of their conjurers or the cleverness of their 

 hunters. For ourselves, this longing for companionship 

 was left unsatisfied, for the Esquimaux have either 



A a 



