CHAPTER XXXIX. 



EASTEK IX HEIBERG LAND. 



To iny amazement Isachsen and Fosheirn informed me that this 

 was Good Friday evening ! We had all nearly forgotten it ; and, 

 seeing that this was Good Friday, the day before, probably, 

 had been Maundy Thursday.* We were quite horrified that the 

 latter should have escaped us, and hurried into the tents to 

 prepare a festal meal and make up for lost time, determined to 

 do something extra, for it is not often that Maundy Thursday 

 falls on a Good Friday. Saturday, then, April 14, would be Easter 

 Eve, according to our new reckoning. 



The fresh breeze from the south-east increased during the day 

 to a strong wind, with dark thick atmosphere, anything but 

 inspiriting weather. We drove across the bay in the west on 

 hard, even ice, but with heavy going, and after reaching land on 

 the other side followed it northward. The whole coast-line, as 

 far as we could discern, was almost straight, and all the way 

 cliffs fell perpendicularly into the sea. Pressure had forced the 

 ice a great number of feet up the steep sides of the mountains, and 

 it looked almost as if a giant bricklayer had been there with his 

 trowel, plastering the lower parts with a layer of ice. In some 

 places, indeed, he must have stood on tiptoe, for the wall varied 

 greatly in height. 



At four in the afternoon we stopped at a point of land, where 

 we encamped. Here we began again to imagine that the land 

 would trend east ; but in this, as it proved later on, we were once 



* Maundy Thursday and Easter Monday (the latter known as ' Second Easter 

 Day '), in Norway, are both Church festivals and holidays. They are almost equal 

 in importance with Good Friday and Easter Day. 



373 



