OUR FIRST LANDINGS 57 



It pushed us up, so to say. As long as we had it well 

 in hand we didn't care. We still clung to the hope of 

 a harbour, and harbour there was none on this side. 

 If this ice was coming on, the northern ice might be 

 going back. It seemed that we might yet find a way 

 round by the north when that ice went up with the tide. 



We sailed as much as we could, saving our coal all we 

 knew. But I had made up my mind on a point which, 

 before I turned in, I unfolded to my companion. 



' If/ said I, ' we can't get round the north of the island, 

 then I land to-morrow.' 



Now will I enter upon considerations which I should 

 not deem it necessary to give, were it not that, since my 

 return to this country, I have been taken to task in 

 more than one quarter for the ' folly and rashness ' 

 of committing another and myself to such uncertain 

 chances as offered themselves upon the island. 



But the reader who reflects that we had the evidence 

 of our eyes that there had been, if not lately, at any rate 

 not very long since, persons on this island with their 

 reindeer and their sleighs ; that even if these people had 

 crossed to the mainland they would be coming back 

 again when the sea was clear ; or else that some from 

 the mainland would come to them — for nothing is more 

 certain than that even Samoyeds would not long exist with- 

 out flour and other necessaries of life ; — and finally, that we 

 had come all the way with no other object but to inquire 

 into this very country — the reader, I say, who reflecting 



