SUMMER JOURNEYS AND FERTILITY. 17 



place where it had been the previous autumn. It was not a long 

 drive, not more than a couple of miles perhaps, but it was bad 

 enough all the same. For one thing, the dogs were most dread- 

 fully footsore, and for another, nay team took it into their heads to 

 go out to every pool of water we came near. The deeper the pools 

 the better they liked them, for then they could swim and save 

 their feet. I used my whip till iny arm ached. Where they got it 

 they felt it, that I will guarantee ; but, all the same, they went 

 exactly where they chose ; and Schei's dogs, of course, followed 

 mine that was only natural. 



I will not deny that this water-cure did the dogs good, but 

 it did not agree so well with the loads. All our things were 

 saturated cameras, guns, sleeping-bags, all were as if they had 

 been fished out of a stream ; and so they were, in a way, for they 

 had to be dragged up from the lanes. Well, well, it was good 

 drying weather at the time, so it was no great matter, but the 

 photograph plates were spoiled, one and all. 



Nor was there a single hare to be seen here either. We now 

 went west, up the mountain-sides, until we could see down into 

 Sydkapfjord, but when a raw fog set in later in the day we thought 

 it wiser to turn back. 



We discovered, while on the mountains, the track of a bear, 

 which apparently had taken a trip ashore during the course of the 

 spring. Most likely it had come from Sydkapfjord; it had 

 crossed the mountains and gone down to the inner part of Havne- 

 fjord. The remarkable thing about this ramble was that, after 

 descending on the other side, it had not taken to the ice, but had 

 followed land all the way inwards, and had then gone up the 

 valley. Where he had finally betaken himself to it is difficult to 

 say, but it was plain he must have been a land-lubber, for he had 

 kept to dry land the whole time. 



After a few days Schei finished his work, and we then drove 

 out to the ' Fram ' again. We had meant to shape our course on 

 the east side of a little island which there was out there, but were 

 stopped by open water, and had to go all the way back, for, from 

 the big river which ran out into the fjord east of the island and 

 right across to the latter, the fjord lay open and blue. 



VOL. II. C 



