366 NEW LAND. 



Farther west the ice receded from the sea, and gave place to a 

 narrow strip of shore ; at the same time, too, the going improved, 

 so that we could drive along the ice-foot. There were plenty of 

 hares here, it appeared, and from the tracks they must have been 

 about in flocks. Now and then a hare ran along the ice-foot ; we 

 saw three of them as we drove along. 



On April 28 we came to a large waterway, which cut through 

 the land for a great distance in a northerly direction. We thought 

 at first that it must be a sound, decided to explore it, and with 

 much difficulty, and through snow that became looser and looser 

 as we went on, made our way up the fjord. 



As we were turning round a point a little after midday we 

 saw two or three hares a short way above the crack. We had to 

 have them, for dog-food was growing seriously short ; day by day 

 the dogs became thinner, and were less able to pull the sledges. 

 We had had hard work and bad weather nearly the whole time, 

 and it was long since we had been able to get extra food for them. 

 We had, indeed, seen the tracks of reindeer going from east to west 

 in a few places, and six or seven miles east of Blaafjeld we had 

 come across a bear-track. But our hope of big game sank lower 

 and lower every clay, so that we were glad to take what pre- 

 sented itself in the way of ground game, as far as we could do so 

 without wasting ammunition. 



When I had shot the two hares and was just going up to fetch 

 them, I caught sight of a whole flock of the same kind of animals a 

 little higher up. It was not long before I had altogether twelve 

 hares on my conscience, and then I stopped on account of the 

 ammunition. We had, at all events, a hare apiece for the dogs, and 

 half a hare each to our own cheek. 



I took as big a burden as I could carry, and went down again, 

 and although the odometer only showed a day's march of seven 

 or eight miles, we camped at this point, so that the dogs could 

 have a good rest. There was high feeding for them that day : 

 their ordinary allowances, and a giant hare apiece into the 

 bargain. 



We named the fjord ' Harefjord,' and not without reason. 

 Almost wherever we looked we saw hares scampering in all 



