THE LAST SUMMER. 429 



to change our place. As we anchored, two or three walruses climbed 

 up on to the ice near the ship. Fosheim shot one of them ; the 

 animal was skinned, the meat brought on board, and we steamed 

 out of the fjord to bore ourselves into the pack. We lay for several 

 days drifting backwards and forwards abreast of ' Borgenodden ' 

 (Borgen Point). We did not feel much of the south wind, which, 

 however, was blowing pretty hard both north and south of 

 Trangsuudet; and all the way down the fjord the ice was so 

 tightly packed that often two or three floes were forced one on 

 top of the other. 



There we lay, grinding round and round, out in the narrowest 

 part of the fjord ; at times with steam up, so as to keep clear of 

 land, but without being able to ram our way through. We had 

 advanced a couple of miles when, on July 26, a stiff breeze from 

 the south-east sprang up, and the ice slackened under the east 

 shore. We instantly forced our way up into the land channel, and 

 followed it outwards, narrow though it was. Although we were 

 hard put to it in some places out by the points, we crept on till 

 we were abreast the Eskimo ruins, just above Ytre Eide, but there 

 we came to an utter standstill. We could not anchor, for we 

 knew the ice would drift towards land as soon as the wind dropped, 

 so we lay to on the outer side of a very large floe. 



As we expected, when the wind went down later in the night, 

 the ice drifted landward, and remained in such a compact mass 

 that we could not take a boat ashore without dragging it up on the 

 ice. Although the prospect of shooting something enticed us into 

 the valley, we had to give it up, it was too hard work. 



This Gaasefjord is a very remarkable place. It had to wait 

 long before strangers found their way to it, but, once there, it 

 knows the art of keeping its guests to perfection. Last year the 

 ice never broke up at all : this year, when the same- host opened 

 the drawing-room door for his guests, they were seized by the 

 collar and held fast in the hall. 'I will never do this again/ 

 said the boy, when he chopped off his left hand. I, at any rate, 

 shall take good care not to set foot in Gaasefjord again. 



But the dredgers ? They were nowhere to be found. Probably 

 they were beset at some place farther west. 



