166 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. October 



' 12th. — A strong wind blew from the north-west 

 during the night, but it has turned out a truly magni- 

 ficent day. Not a particle of cloud or mist in the 

 orange-coloured sky. At noon the sun, nearly at its 

 lowest altitude, was shining, on the southern slopes of 

 the Greenland Hills and United States Mountains, and 

 gilding the summits of the lofty hummocks three and 

 four miles north of us. It is as agreeable a contrast 

 to the late misty weather as anyone could wish for ; 

 and except for the sake of our absent travellers, we 

 should forget what is past. To-day I obtained astro- 

 nomical observations at this position for the first time. 

 On our first arrival here, no stars were visible, and the 

 sun itself was at too low an altitude. Since it was dark 

 at midnight we have only seen one star and then only 

 for a few moments. 



' During the afternoon Eawson returned from a ten 

 days excursion to the southward, having, as I fully ex- 

 pected, been unable to force his way along the coast- 

 line beyond a cliff about twelve miles from the ship. 

 He found the broken masses of ice forced up on top of 

 the ice-foot and resting against the cliffs, in many places 

 more than thirty feet high ; this and the accumulated 

 deep snow-drifts fronting the valleys caused more than 

 usually laborious travelling and finally stopped him 

 altogether. The ice in the channel was in constant 

 motion ; hence it was out of the question to trust his 

 party on it even with a boat. 



' Having built a snow hut with much trouble caused 

 by the difficulty in obtaining hard snow — one of a chain 

 of huts which I hope to construct for the use of travel- 

 lers journeying between the two ships — he passed the 





