474 NEW LAND. 



morning. I had, therefore, to go off after it, but as I was unsuccessful 

 in my search, we had to start minus a dog. I consoled myself 

 by thinking that the rascal had dodged us and run away home. 

 A week later it arrived at Bjorneborg, as fat as butter and 

 thoroughly well pleased with itself. The intervening time it had 

 spent probably at the walrus-meat in Hvalrosfjord, leaving it only 

 when a bear had come and driven it away. It had thus gone 

 forty-three miles on its own account. 



' After a day's toil in rugged ice we ended it, however, in a 

 hare-hunt and half a day's easy driving, we came to De Lazy 

 Point, where I meant to stay a day for excursions on land, and 

 to take observations for position. But the weather was so un- 

 certain, or, more correctly, so certainly bad, that our stay was 

 prolonged to three and a half days. 



' During this dull time a bear-hunt was the only enlivenment 

 we had. On our second morning there, just as we had begun 

 breakfast, my dogs began to bark, and Hendriksen, who was 

 " rigged " that is to say, had on his " finsko " at once crept out 

 of the tent. The dogs were still barking they sat gazing in one 

 direction and, on looking that way too, he saw a large bear, 

 which was standing contemplating the camp, twenty paces behind 

 the tent. When Hendriksen raised himself up it appeared to come 

 to the conclusion that it was safer to retire, at any rate for the 

 present, and, on Hendriksen's first shot, considerably accelerated its 

 retreat. Meanwhile I had got my boots on, and came out just in 

 time to see the bear make his last jump for the second shot from 

 Hendriksen's rifle. There it lay, big and fat ; useful to us and 

 a joy to the dogs. They ate for two days, as long as they could 

 swallow, and when we began to drive again on the third day it was 

 as if we had new teams ; they ran along with their heavy loads 

 which before they had hardly been able to draw. 



'We were now taking a presumptive line for an island, or 

 group of islands, which we had caught a glimpse of some days 

 before, but it was not until we were just about to camp in the 

 evening that we really saw them. The day afterwards we went 

 ashore. 



' It proved that we had landed on the smaller and more 



