332 NEW LAND 



had to take in a reef. The tide now turned and ran swift and 

 hard northward through the sound. The sea at once became so 

 choppy that, in the rudderless boat, with only the steer-oar, and 

 at the pace we were going through the eddying current, we could 

 no longer steer it. But this did not stop us, though we had to take 

 in three more reefs before we managed to make Exkrementbugten, 

 where we intended to land. But to drag the boat up the steep 

 hill of ice was easier said than done. Though all four of us 

 worked like horses, we could not move it an inch. So then we 

 bethought ourselves of turning to account what help there was to 

 be had, and accordingly hoisted our scrap of a sail, and stood up 

 the ice-hill. It answered well, and up we went so fast that I 

 was afraid that the mast would snap ; and we had more than 

 enough to do to hold the boat on an even keel. 



The wind howled, and the sound was packed so full of ice 

 that we stayed where we were for a day with a good conscience. - 

 We might well have saved ourselves a shooting excursion that we 

 made up the valley. Schei and Fosheim found a few fossils up in 

 the bed of a river, and that was the whole of our bag. 



When the wind dropped next day we went on southward. It 

 was difficult to get the boat out from land, through the thick 

 ' shell-ice,' and down through the sound as well we made but 

 little progress. Sometimes we had to stop and wait till the floes 

 had drifted past the points ; now and again to drag the boat across 

 a point of ice. 



We found a sheltered camping-place in the evening under a 

 steep mountain crag in Jammerbugten. The only game we set 

 eyes on in the evening were a couple of bearded seals on the 

 young ice in the bay. 



We were now approaching the walrus grounds, where we 

 meant to try our luck before we went further west. We scanned 

 the ice carefully, but did not see a single walrus out in Jones 

 Sound that evening. The strong north wind had sent the ice 

 straight across the sound, and had probably carried off the whole 

 lot of them down into the bays on the north side of North Devon. 

 Due south of King Oscar Land there was hardly a floe to be seen. 



We did not see a single walrus on Monday, September 16, 



