CHAPTER XVII. 



SLEDCrE- JOURNEYS ASHORE AND AFLOAT. 



ON Monday evening, July 3, four of us drove up the fjord; of 

 whom Bay and I were to fetch the depot from Fort Juliana, and 

 Simmons and Schei to visit Alexandra Fjord. The pools of water 

 were so deep that the dogs might have swum them, and we drove 

 through water almost the whole way up Hayes Sound. Towards 

 morning we rested for a while on the east side of the fjord, and 

 amused ourselves by shooting sea-birds in the lanes. 



Here we parted company, and the other party started up 

 Alexandra Fjord, while Bay and I went on to Fort Juliana, where 

 we remained for two days. We accomplished our business there, 

 and collected some plants and insects up on the slopes and on the 

 neck of land leading to Nordfjord. We saw no traces of polar 

 oxen, but shot a leash of hares, and saw the first ptarmigan chicks 

 of the year. 



The polar ptarmigan is a variety, or, more properly speaking, 

 several different varieties, of our ordinary mountain ptarmigan. 

 It is rather larger than the latter, while its summer plumage also 

 slightly differs from it. 



The sun now burnt just as it does on the Norwegian mountains 

 on a really hot summer day, and we began to be anxious about the 

 ice, for it had been bad enough on the trip hither. So, much as we 

 should have liked to remain, we dared not do so any longer and 

 started homewards on the evening of July 9, keeping farther inside 

 the islands than we usually did, as I was afraid that the current 

 outside might have weakened the ice. My anxiety was well 

 founded ; when we were in mid-fjord, we saw that there was open 

 water almost all the way to the islands, though by going up the 



183 



