306 Knud Rasmussen. 



At last, after toiling for six hours from hill to hill, down through 

 rocky ravines and up over chaotic slopes, I reached a crest from where 

 I could look out over the country. Almost at my feet, lying east 

 and west, was a big lake, extending out through broad, steep-sided 

 valleys into several smaller lakes. A broad river connected the lakes 

 and valleys, the sides of the latter being formed of fairly high sand- 

 stone cliffs of a warm brown colour, and broad gentle slopes that 

 seemed well suited to such vegetation as the musk ox seek. This 

 was the place to explore; for it must be here that the beasts whose 

 tracks I had seen all the way had their haunts. I had seen tracks 

 of musk ox everywhere, in sand and clay, and here and there in 

 snow drifts: none of them, however, had been fresh. We should now 

 have to drive round behind the hill at the foot of which we had 

 camped, in order to get down to the valley and there obtain food 

 for the dogs. It was a long way, however, and we all needed a rest 

 before starting. I reached the tent about the same time as my com- 

 rades, neither of whom had met with better luck. As far as the actual 

 bag was concerned, the reconnaissance had been unsuccesful, still, 

 we had made ourselves acquainted with our immediate surroundings, 

 and knew now where to go. 



When at last we turned in to rest in our little tent, it was with 

 the deep satisfaction which follows upon 40 hours of uninterrupted 

 toil and fatigue; sleep then is the extinction of all consciousness, 

 dreamless and deep. 



Hunting. 10 May. 



It was very early morning when we turned out to make ready 

 for our first hunting expedition in the country we had seen the day 

 before. Freuchen had been struck with snow blindness immediately 

 after our descent from the inland ice, and had to be left behind. 

 We placed food ready for him in a corner of the tent, and left him 

 to his own devices for an indefinite time, being all of us thoroughly 

 aware that we could not come back to camp before we had made 

 a kill. 



We started off at first along the glacier to its mouth in the in- 

 land ice, a little beyond the spot where we had lowered ourselves 

 down the day before. Here, however, we met with a serious disap- 

 pointment, which proved indeed, of more importance than we at first 

 imagined. The lake, we found, on which we drove, flung itself down 

 into the hollows towards which we were steering by mighty water- 

 falls, frozen and gleaming, in four "storeys", making in all some 

 180 m. sheer. We had thus to find another place at which to make 

 the descent, and from what we had seen when out reconnoitring it 

 seemed that the only possible way remaining was over a tongue of 

 the inland ice projecting westward. This we should have to go up, 



