HEUREKA ! 199 



heard it howling unremittingly, until the sounds were lost in the 

 distance. 



Farther north the going improved, and at a point which was 

 later named ' Smorgrautberget ' we got on to a splendid ribbon 

 of even ice with good snow on it, where a lane had been the 

 previous autumn. The breeze gradually increased to a moderate 

 gale, and with this at our backs we were swept northwards, the 

 snow flying round us. 



A little way off the point we pulled up to look round, but it 

 was not easy to make out our surroundings. We only saw that a 

 short distance away, where the young ice stopped, the drift-ice 

 was as ugly and impracticable as before. 



We then kept under land, but suddenly the young ice came to 

 an end, and we found ourselves in a perfect maze of icebergs 

 and ancient polar ice, which lay mixed up together in dire 

 confusion ; with here and there enormous drifts between. To try 

 to make our way in thick weather through such ice, where there 

 was pitfall after pitfall ready to swallow us up, was absurd. The 

 dogs crawled up the steep drifts like flies, and straightway dis- 

 appeared over the other side into deep hollows, and when the loads 

 turned the top and rushed down the slope, both sledges and dogs 

 were often within an ace of being destroyed. 



We had been using our ' ski ' up to this time, but here we had 

 to take them off and put them on the loads, though how to get 

 on without them in this pressure-ice we did not know. The 

 drifted snow was not hard enough to bear, and often we sank to 

 our waists between the blocks of ice. 



When we were heartily sick of the whole thing, we camped 

 under the lee of a big hummock a short mile from land. We 

 could just discern through the driving snow a big valley right 

 behind our camp. We made up our minds to look at it ; it would 

 be interesting to see something of the land we had reached ; so 

 after a light dinner we buckled on our ' ski ' and started inwards. 



We had some hesitation about doing this, however. The tent 

 was well hidden between the high-pressure hummocks, and could 

 we find it again ? But necessity is the mother of invention ; we 

 agreed to furnish ourselves with a sizeable quid apiece, and at 



