106 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



I may mention here another discovery worth remember- 

 ing. When you can find no shelter of any kind, and are 

 not well clothed, the discomforts of sleeping in the open 

 air are much mitigated if you sleep with your head to 

 the wind. For it is the back which suffers most. 



It was just four o'clock that morning when, after having 

 eaten a fie and a lunch biscuit, we were once more on 

 the move. The fog had cleared, and the sun shone most 

 brilliantly. 



I have somehow forgotten to tell you about the flowers ; 

 but as I mean to give them a separate chapter later on, 

 perhaps I need say but little here. The most beautilul 

 of them all, I think, was the Arctic Forget-me-not. Of 

 an intense blue, it flourished but on the sandy places. 

 Commonly it grew on the pure sand, unsupported by any 

 other green thing. Here it looked strangely unnatural, 

 I used to think, like the flower in a lady's bonnet. 



At 7 a.m. we reached a little half- frozen stream. 1 

 got out my sponge-bag and made a toilette with some 

 difficulty. Then we had breakfast, finishing our first tin 

 of potted grouse. And so we went to sleep. 



Just after we had started again at 10.30, I all but trod 

 on a lono-tailed duck. Bano- off her nest she went, 

 scattering her eggs in her flurry. She had six eggs, 

 and they were slightly 'set.' The nest was remarkably 

 neat, and, for a duck's nest, very deep. It was all of 

 down with a little dead grass and dead birch-leaves. 



We walked very slowly. To understand how this 



