436 THE GERMAN AECTIC EXPEDITION. 



of tlie rifle, and out-manoeuvred Ellinger, wlio, after 

 making a wide circuit, thought to come close upon 

 them. In deep snow we accompHshed the thirty- 

 miles there and back to a mountain more than 1080 

 feet high, which rose above the plateau stretching 

 alono; the coast. 



CD 



We had crossed the 77th degree of latitude ! Like so 

 many of our predecessors, we, too, longed to lift the veil 

 hanging over the whole of the Arctic world, so opposed 

 to the mandate, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further ;" 

 and, like so many others, found that our object gained fell 

 far short of our bold flights of fancy ; and that, resting after 

 endless troubles at the end of our journey, we still looked 

 in vain for the solution of the many riddles which science 

 expected of us. The conjecture, once broached, of an open 

 Arctic Sea, we could, from our stand-point, only reject 

 as idle. To the furthest point of the horizon the sea was 

 covered with a solid covering of ice, over which, had it 

 not been for the want of provisions, we could have con- 

 tinued our sledge journey. The outer coast-line stretched 

 n an almost northerly direction ; to the north-west, the 

 prospect was closed in by lofty ice-covered mountains, 

 only a few miles distant. 



The question, in which direction Greenland now ex- 

 tended, had thus far found no solution. The great num- 

 ber of inland maritime districts, the everywhere striking 

 division of land which, in a favourable bright evening, 

 stood out so plainly, gave room to the conjecture that 

 the chief mass of land (if this should be a continent), 

 probably trended off to the north-west, in 76° Lat., 

 and that we as yet had only to do with outlying islands ; 

 this, at least, appeared as likely as a north and south 



