48 NEW LAND. 



water from a little stream in the valley. Now, I thought, I will 

 pretend to be a bear and frighten him ; but when I saw that the 

 wretched fellow had a gun with him, I seemed to lose all zest in 

 the matter, and went back to camp merely as a man. 



Our fellows saw at once, from the beef, that I had shot big 

 game, and eagerly asked what it was. I muttered something 

 about a mammoth, but did not give any very clear answer, for we 

 had agreed, once for all, that meals, being the most important, 

 should come before shooting yarns and the discussion of the events 

 of the day. The mammoth beef was fried, in almost as short a 

 space of time as it takes to tell, and then our tongues were 

 loosened, for better steaks our fellows said they had never eaten, 

 and the traditional flavour of musk, of which the flesh of the polar 

 ox is said to taste, was entirely absent. 



When we had had our coffee, and had lighted our pipes, I told 

 my story, and as circumstantially as possible, so that another time 

 my comrades might know how the polar ox acts when it is stalked. 



It was late before we turned into our bags, and I am not sure 

 that big-game fever was not in the blood of all of us that night, for 

 by dawn every one was ready to talk about polar oxen again. The 

 flesh was duly fetched the long distance back to camp, and when 

 we returned to it, tired and hungry, I gave the steward orders to 

 make at once some Julienne soup ' Juliana soup,' he persistently 

 called it, and thus our camp received the name, from Schei, of 

 ' Fort Juliana.' 



On the morning of Saturday, October 1, there was more than 

 the usual activity going on at Fort Juliana. Bay was getting ready 

 to go out shooting, Schei and Isachsen preparing in earnest to 

 survey the fjord on which we were camping, while Fosheim and 

 I had our hands full preparing for a week's trip inland to solve 

 the question fjord or sound ? 



In spite of all this movement, we found time to name several 

 conspicuous points in the landscape. Among others, and after a 

 very lively debate, the high mountain to the west of our station, 

 which fell so boldly and steeply into the sea, was named ' Mount * 

 Kola Paalsen.' 



* So given by the author. 



