220 NEW LAND. 



quite near to the boat, and gazed at us with eyes of astonishment 

 before it disappeared again ; a moment afterwards it came up in 

 another place and stared at us with equal wonderment. Several 

 of them followed us in this way for long distances up the fjord. 

 Schei made an attempt on one, but without success. 



We camped in the evening on a fine dry patch of shingle 

 outside the valley. As soon as the tent was up, we went off 

 shooting, for, whatever happened, we meant to have roast hare for 

 supper. We saw no trace of polar cattle, but up on the slopes 

 were hares in numbers. Shooting them, however, was easier said 

 than done, for it was growing dusk ; I for my part shot almost 

 at haphazard, and my bag was accordingly a leash of hares, 

 after divers misses. An almost uninterrupted cannonade went 

 on all the way up the valley, and if my companions had hit all 

 their marks, there would have been hare enough for supper 

 and no mistake. The others, however, had not much more to 

 boast of than myself, although there was more than enough for 

 our evening meal. 



We then turned in, with snow-bare slopes and plains around 

 us; but in the morning when we awoke, the snow lay several 

 inches deep over the mountains and valleys. 



In consequence of this, we did not prolong our stay up in the 

 fjord. On the way home we had very bad weather, with snow 

 and sleet, and it was so thick that we could barely see the land 

 lying under its white covering only a few furlongs from us. The 

 seals did not seem to mind the weather, for there were a great many 

 of them lying on a strip of ice just inside of Fosheim's Baby, but 

 the weather was so thick we could not see them until we were 

 close on them, and by that time they took to the water before we 

 were ready to fire. 



We reached the ship in the evening, where I found everybody 

 hard at work carrying the walrus-meat ashore, and spreading 

 it out on the mountain-side to freeze, as soon as the cold weather 

 should set in. The dogs were already tethered on the beach. 



The health of the members of the expedition was not so good 

 at this time as was usually the case. It was long before we forgot 

 the days we spent ramming our way through the ice in Jones 



