258 NEW LAND. 



been obliged to leave a couple of animals with the entrails still in 

 them, and this I thought so dreadful that I was on the point of 

 starting off the same evening to finish the work, but gave it up on 

 account of the darkness and bad weather. 



Next day we drove to the field of battle, taking with us all the 

 dogs, but had to stop a short distance before we came to it, as 

 there was no more snow on which to drive. We set to work on 

 the animals, skinned and dismembered them, and carried the meat 

 down to the sledges. The dogs, who knew by instinct that now 

 was their turn, could not, or would not, wait any longer ; just as we 

 were going to let them loose on the garbage, three of the teams 

 broke away and set off in a pack, and their harness having become 

 entangled on the way up, they set on the entrails so encumbered. 



It is not a pleasant sight to see dogs on such occasions ; they 

 then become beasts of prey only, and there is such rivalry among 

 them to swallow the greatest possible amount of food, that they 

 have not time even to fight. Nothing is to be heard but their 

 snorting and smacking noises as they gulp down the contents 

 of the paunch, and other delicacies ; while their coats get into 

 such a horrible mess, that they look as if they had been dragged 

 through the gutter, or worse. They devoured almost every 

 scrap of the entrails, and ate till they were as round as balloons. 

 Entangled as their traces had been before, they were still worse 

 after the dogs had waded in the garbage, and woven the lines in 

 and out of each other. These gluttons were a sight to behold 

 after they had clone their meal ! Confusion was worse confounded ! 

 Some lay on their backs, some on their sides, some had wound the 

 line so fast round their feet, that they could only lie still and 

 yelp, while others had got it round neck, head, and paws. If we 

 had not gone to their rescue at once, and cut their harness and 

 traces in many places, something serious would have happened. 

 We then took some of the meat down to the camp, but as we 

 could not bring it all down in one day we had to stay on till 

 the next. 



While Fosheim and Bay were driving down the last of it the 

 following day, and Schei was mending the harness and splicing 

 the traces, I went off to see if I could shoot anything, but the 



