368 NEW LAND. 



Mist and snow did not improve the situation either for ourselves 

 or for the dogs. 



In the evening we camped out on the ice, looking towards 

 the most westerly foreland we had seen the year before from 

 Smorgrautberget. "We guessed the distance at about nine miles. 



On Thursday, May 1, we were again driven out from land by 

 stones and grit, and had alternately the same troublesome bright 

 ice and loose snow. Beyond the cape, which we had long had in 

 view, the land trended more to the north, but we could not see 

 much of it through the snow-laden air. We passed the night near 

 a large pressure-ridge, and in the morning saw for certain that we 

 were on a fjord or sound, which penetrated the land in a northerly 

 direction. This we had to make sure of, and therefore, took a line 

 northward. 



As with our previous attempt on a fjord running north, the 

 snow became worse the farther in we went, and later in the 

 evening the weather also thickened. We had to force our way 

 across broad belts of old ice ; sometimes these were very rugged, 

 and at others had deep hollows and ditches in them, which were 

 filled with loose snow. We fought our way a few miles inwards, 

 and camped under a very higli crag of rock, which stuck out a little 

 way into the fjord. 



As next day brought no improvement in the weather or the 

 snow, we decided to return. It was too risky to go on driving 

 with so little certainty and in such miserable travelling. If this 

 were a fjord it might delay us, and prevent us from ascertaining 

 the extent of the land to the west, and that would never do. As 

 long as we followed our own tracks back we did well, but when 

 we made for the western headland, we could hardly get the 

 dogs along at all, and had to go on in front and stamp a way 

 with our ' ski ; ' consequently we made but little progress, and still 

 less when the wind sprang up. That night our camp lay snugly 

 sheltered by the grit-hills near the western cape. 



The day afterwards we pushed on again. The land trended to 

 about the true north, and as the weather gradually cleared we saw 

 land in the north-west it was a bay, then, we had before us. On 

 the other side of the bay the land entirely changed its character. 



