FROM ICY CAPE BACK TO CIVILIZATION 367 



until night fell. The going was fair, we ran along on the 

 narrow icefoot, and were consequently out of the salty ice, but 

 the new sledge was by no means a light one and was almost as 

 hard to pull as my old sledge had been. The natives who were 

 travelling with us were making twice as good time as we were. 

 I asked them more than once to take some of my load, without 

 being able to induce them to do so, but as soon as we had 

 camped they came over to " get a hand out," promising to take 

 some of my gear on the following day. When that had 

 happened twice, and they had forgotten it on each following 

 day, I knew what to do and camped about half a mile from 

 them. The next morning they were hungry, insisted upon 

 taking some of my load, arid were highly disgusted when I 

 would not trust them with any of my provisions. 



As we progressed along the coast and came to the mountains 

 the scenery became almost grand, at least compared with any 

 I had hitherto seen. The coast-line rises out of the water, high 

 and perpendicular, wherever it is not broken by a small stream. 

 The dark mountains, too steep for the snow to settle on, formed 

 a pleasing contrast to the monotonous white which hitherto 

 had been my daily outlook, and far away in the distance a blue- 

 looking bluff against the reddish evening sky told me that I 

 was slowly approaching Cape Lisburne. The refraction was 

 playing with it, sometimes lifting it up in the air, making 

 it at other times look as if it were twenty miles nearer, but 

 while I was looking at it, it faded and grew fainter until all at 

 once it again loomed out of the twilight, distorted, wild, and 

 weird. 



But the days were short, the faint daylight faded completely, 

 Cape Lisburne disappeared in the gathering dusk, cape after 

 cape was engulfed in the darkness, and before long we were 

 groping our way along the dark bluff only some 20 feet 

 away, rising sheer out of the water to a height of 300 

 feet, while the stars were twinkling and shining over our heads, 

 and the dark sky was made still darker by contrast with some 

 greenish streamers of light shooting up from behind the 

 mountains, moving about over the sky, a flickering light which 

 faded into nothingness, only to be followed by other streamers. 



We pushed on, feeling contented with ourselves and life 

 in general. We could run ahead of our dogs for ten hours 



