476 THE GEEMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



tlie garden-poppy, did we find on monntains from 1G25 

 to 3250 feefc high. On the summit of a rock 7495 feet 

 high grew, near the well-known black and yellow lichen, 

 known everywhere in the European Alps as the last 

 representative of vegetation, a long, fibrous kind of 

 moss. 



The greater summer warmth of the rocky interior of 

 the country insures there a more varied Flora. Former 

 Esquimaux settlements, if only covering a few square 

 fathoms, were at once recognizable from their light green 

 colour, caused by constant manuring. Meadows, in our 

 sense of the term, were nowhere to be seen. 



How far north the musk-ox and the reindeer are found 

 we can scarcely decide. The first we met in 11"^ N. 

 Lat., and the last only in 75°. The scanty means of 

 existence afforded by the soil compel them to constant 

 wanderings. 



Both animals are almost always met with in herds, 

 sometimes of from twenty to thirty head. The greatest 

 number of reindeer we ever saw were about 100 to 

 200 head, on a hilly ground to the west of Cape Broer 

 Ruys ; and the greatest number of musk-oxen in the 

 brown-coal district of Kuhn Island. To the former we 

 gave battle. 



Their behaviour towards the hunter is in no way 

 similar. The reindeer approaches him at a brisk 

 trot, full of curiosity, to within a few steps; indeed, 

 sometimes they come quite close to him. The musk- 

 ox remains as if rooted to the spot, staring at the 

 strange, unknown enemy, and arrives very slowly at 

 a resolution. 



At Cape Philip-Broke four of them most humbly 



