Scientific work on the First Thule Expedition 1912. 397 



in full gallop, head down at the charge. Then they met, with a mighty 

 shock and a furious crash. Retiring again, they repeated the charge 

 several times, until one acknowledged defeat by moving aside so as to 

 avoid the other. The victor then desisted from further attacks, but 

 seemed, by various movements and gestures, to be exhibiting scorn of 

 its conquered foe. Throughout the whole of this passage of arms they 

 had entirely forgotten the presence of an unknown being, to wit, Knud 

 Rasmussen, close by. At last, when their own differences had been 

 settled, and he walked up to them, they turned in a fright and trotted 

 off to the cows. Once here, however, they forgot their common enemy 

 once more, and instead of giving the alarm and taking to flight, they 

 calmly commenced grazing anew. At this point we loosed the dogs at 

 them, and soon after we had brought down the whole herd. 



Some little distance from this spot we came upon a skeleton, the 

 skull of which had been split in battle. The force with which two such 

 bulls dash against each other is enormous, and it takes all the thickness 

 of the skull, and the helmet-like protection of the horns, to stand the 

 shock. 



Game Land, the country at the base of Independence Fjord, twice 

 visited by Peary, is so called solely from the abundance of musk ox. 

 The land is entirely surrounded by the inland ice, which runs out into 

 the fjord, locking it in. It consists partly of large moraine-covered areas 

 to the south and west, and partly of high hills, furrowed at every turn 

 by deep ravines and valleys, with rushing torrents of water. Down in 

 the valleys vegetation thrives, as the ground is moist and sheltered. 

 All the remaining country, however, consists of gravel and stones with 

 no plant life at all. The musk ox therefore often prefer to keep to the 

 lower ground ; along the backs of lakes and rivers one finds everywhere 

 trodden paths, levelled and trampled hard, with the grass worn away. 

 On either side of these paths, the g"rass grows luxuriantly, being manured 

 by the passing beasts. We found numerous skeletons and fragments of 

 same in the neighbourhood of these paths, for the most part in small 

 open spaces such as would afford a good duelling ground. We found 

 their dung also, wherever we went. 



Peary's successful hunting in this country is well known. In "Musk 

 Ox Valley" on the way up to his cairn, we found skeletons of cows and 

 calves which he had killed. The skulls, by the way, had still some bleached 

 remains of hair round and between the horns. 



On the 14th July, we reached the land and camped out near the 

 moraine. We then divided into two parties and set out in search of game. 

 Our party soon sighted a solitary bull in a valley; while moving up 

 towards it, however, we came upon two others, likewise bulls, a kilo- 

 metre or so away. One of these distinguished itself by disregarding 

 the dogs completely, and charging down upon us instead, forcing us to 

 take shelter behind a rock. Both had almost shed their coats, the loose 



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