CHAPTER XXL 



BOATING EXPEDITIONS IN HAVNEFJOKD. 



ON Monday forenoon I rowed inwards in a sealing-boat with 

 Isachsen, Sohei, and Stolz. It was quiet, foggy weather, but we 

 were able to get a glimpse of the shore on both sides. On some 

 stony ground, just inside of Fosheim's Baby, we saw fourteen hares 

 sitting quite motionless as if they expected the sun to come out 

 and shine on them after all this fog, and a little farther in were 

 another lot in the same expectant position. We left them in 

 peace, and continued on our way inwards with the intention of 

 rowing through the sound, on the west side of a little island some 

 distance up the fjord, but we were tempted beyond our powers of 

 resistance by a bearded seal which was lying on a floe. It 

 detained us longer than we had expected, but it had its revenge, 

 for when we were ready to go on we found our way cut off by a 

 ' val/ * which we had to row outside of before we were able at last 

 to land on the island. 



From its highest point we saw that the fjord did not cut nearly 

 so deeply into the land as we had thought, but that, on the 

 other hand, there were large valleys penetrating into it in different 

 directions. Thus, due east of the island and right in front of us, 

 ran a broad and fertile valley. In here there must surely be game ! 



We shaped our course for a valley which ran in a westerly 

 direction, about a mile from the head of the fjord, and created quite 

 a sensation on our row up. At one place a seal thrust its head up 



* In several parts of Norway ' val ' is the name given to a neck of land which, 

 as a rule, is covered at high water, but which at low water forms an isthmus 

 between the land and an island, or between two islands. If it is only covered at the 

 spring-tides, it is called a ' to'rval.' 



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