104 NEW LAND. 



We struggled hard with this ice next day, but without being 

 able to get the better of it, and in the end were forced to make 

 a long circuit inside the fjord. Inside on the bay the snow was 

 deep and loose, and the sledges travelled terribly slowly. It 

 was long before we had crossed the fjord, and when we had done 

 so what we saw was by no means enlivening. As close as ever 

 under land lay the old ice upheaved, in utter confusion, closing 

 the way on us. We had to take to the ice-foot, but, bad as the 

 ancient ice had been, the ice-foot was doubly slow. Yet, what 

 were we to do ? Set our teeth and press on. 



The land was very low, with long projecting stretches of sand, 

 and it appeared to sustain a vegetation that was both abundant 

 and equally distributed. No wonder that on the ice-foot there 

 were hare-tracks innumerable. A little way above high-water 

 mark the hares had their feeding-ground, where they had rooted and 

 burrowed in all directions. 



On closer investigation we saw that all the tracks led towards 

 the drift-ice ; not one went landwards. The hares probably spent 

 the daytime out in the drift-ice, where the caverns and grottoes 

 afforded them very much better security against foxes and wolves 

 than the open and unprotected plains of the lowlands. A shooter 

 walking these tracts in pursuit of hares in the summer months 

 would probably not set eyes on one of them ; and I have 

 often noticed that the very places which at this season are 

 swarming with hares may be scoured in vain by day or by night 

 at the time of year when the drift-ice is not in a condition to afford 

 them a hiding-place. They then migrate farther inland, for they 

 cannot live in tracts where they are unable to find shelter from 

 their enemies. We had noticed hare-tracks for long distances out 

 in the drift-ice the whole way since we came down to the fjord 

 from Troldfjordeidet, and they were quite numerous even in the 

 middle of the fjord. 



We hauled and laboured along the ice-foot, and sometimes put 

 ourselves to the sledges along with the dogs ; but the moments were 

 not many between each stoppage. By dint of much exertion we 

 reached the point of a long out-jutting stretch of sands, on the 

 north side of which the drift-ice had been pressed right across the 



