ACROSS ELLESMERE LAND. 133 



the west, either under the glacier, or between the glacier and the 

 walls of rock. 



When we arrived at the tarn, we found that it was covered 

 with ice as clear as crystal the clearest I have ever seen. Many 

 feet below we could discern quite small objects, such as rubble and 

 the like. The ice was full of cracks, which, no doubt, were due 

 both to the frost and to the pressure of the glacier. The latter 

 was productive, and with its perpendicular walls exercised such 

 violent pressure on the ice of the tarn, that this had been partially 

 thrust up on land, where a high ridge had formed. 



Now began a whole series of tiring and resultless manoauvres to 

 find a way westward. We tried to climb from the mountain- side 

 up on to the glacier, or to find a way between the mountain and 

 the glacier, but both were equally unsuccessful. We went back to 

 the sands, and made a long detour up through the northern canon ; 

 trudged back again to the sands, and from their north side went 

 up an imposing mountain, which we named ' Hexefjeld ' or ' Witch 

 Mountain,' in order to get sufficiently high to see to the end of the 

 valley, west of the glacier. At length, after several hours' tiring 

 march, we succeeded in making sure that the river had its outlet 

 under the glacier, and that west of the latter there was a sandy 

 expanse similar to that east of it. The track of a bear, too, which 

 had gone from the sands to the mountains, keeping north of the 

 glacier, strengthened our belief that here lay the way, for where 

 big game goes there the passage is always practicable. 



We had now been wandering about the whole day, and were 

 decidedly tired ; though Bay was the chief sufferer, being an in- 

 habitant of a flat country, and little used to scrambling for 

 days among boulders and rocks. On the way out we had had the 

 wind ' on our backs,' as Bay expressed it, and that was all very 

 well; but on our return it was right in our faces, which was 

 anything but pleasant, for our eyes were so filled with sand that 

 we could hardly open them. 



We were glad, indeed, when we approached the tent, and still 

 gladder were the dogs, which we had taken with us for possible 

 polar-ox shooting. When they winded it, they set off like mad, 

 and, before we came up with them, had begun to fight furiously 



