392 NEW LAND. 



out on the ice, so as soon as we could we took refuge on the 

 shingle above the ice-foot. We had meat galore, which had to be 

 used up, and it would have been bad indeed for us if, with our 

 ravenous appetites for beef and our short supply of paraffin, we 

 had not found a quantity of Salix arctica on the spits of land 

 where we camped. There were branches in plenty to be had, both 

 green and dry. 



In the evening of May 29 we reached the interior of Bay Fjord, 

 whence it was seven or eight miles farther to Tom men, the 

 mountain which Bay and I had passed on our journey in 1899. 

 I easily recognized the valleys and mountains we saw at that 

 time ; and again, as then, was much impressed by the majestic 

 mountains on the north side of the fjord. We were both seized with 

 a burning desire to drive to the head of the fjord, and on across the 

 isthmus to the known waterway on the east side of the land ; the 

 more so because we thought that if we could reach Brevoort Island, 

 or the west side of Pirn Island, we should find the mail which 

 Peary had brought up thither in 1899. We had been explicitly 

 told in Foulke Fjord that it had been put ashore there, as an 

 American expedition intended to winter there in 1899-1900. 



But perhaps it was better to be wise in one's generation, and not 

 start off on a wild-goose chase. The season was far advanced, and, 

 judging by the weather, it would be as much as We could do to 

 reach the ship, even if we drove the shortest way back. 



Close-handed as was Nature with vegetation in general in this 

 fjord, she was generous enough with Salix. In the bed of the river 

 we found, at different heights, according as the water had been 

 high or low, one patch after another of what this year, especially, 

 was such a welcome plant. What we did not use on the spot 

 we took back with us in a sack. 



The last night of our drive up Bay Fjord we saw a long stripe 

 in the snow stretching right across the fjord. We wondered much 

 what this could be, and at last came to the conclusion that it was a 

 broad run made by the hares ; but what could such an assemblage 

 of hares possibly be doing in this barren fjord ? They had come 

 from the south, had gone straight across the fjord, and, after reaching 

 land on the north side, had kept some forty to fifty, and sometimes 



