192 NEW LAND. 



meant to be so economical with the rest that they should have 

 quite enough till and for the Seventeenth of May. 



We agreed that Fosheini and the mate should follow the east 

 side of the sound northwards ; Schei and I the west side as long 

 as we could. The land to the east appeared to be a large island, 

 and if our surmise should prove correct, they were to try to go 

 round it, and in such a case would not return this way. Of the 

 waters north we knew little more than what we thought to see. 

 The sound appeared to be of considerable length, and widened out 

 as it went northward ; we were unable to see land in the distance. 

 In the midst of the waterway, far to the north, there rose a 

 mountain crag blue, precipitous, and very large ; in appearance 

 like an island. Later on we found that this was no island, but 

 that large fjords penetrated the land towards the north and east. 

 It is from here that Greely Fjord runs north-east for many, many 

 miles into the land. Due south of us there also appeared to be 

 a fjord, on the western side of which we thought to see an island, 

 but the distance rendered it impossible to distinguish anything 

 with certainty. 



We spent a very pleasant evening, and the following morning 

 Schei and I went on north, while the other party set to work 

 to repair the plates of the mate's sledge. After driving for a 

 couple of hours on flat ice, we found ourselves in the midst of 

 some old polar ice with enormously high melted-off ridges and 

 deep dales, where the snow was as loose as sand. At the same 

 time the clouds gathered as if for bad weather, with a northerly 

 breeze and slight fall of snow. We then bore across to the west 

 shore, and by degrees got into winter-old ice, where progress was 

 quite easy. 



On this side of the sound the land was very high, with gentle 

 slopes and well-defined river-valleys. 



Later in the afternoon we shed another tin of dog-food, and 

 a can of petroleum. We cached them in a snowdrift, and left 

 my ' ski '-stick to mark the spot. Two or three miles farther 

 north we reached a point whence a fjord ran westward. The land 

 on the north side of it looked very much like an island, but of 

 this we could not be sure. Out on the bay, north of the point 



