REACHING THE GOAL 119 



must be tired of reading about this walk. So we will 

 hurry on. 



At noon, then, we got under way. Crossing a small 

 plain, we rose some exceedingly difficult hills. It was a 

 constant struggle with snow defiles, with sudden drops 

 and weary climbings, or with sinkings deep into mud 

 puddings as a little bit of change. 



Old Sailor, who left the ship as fat as an alderman, for 

 he was a sad galley-loafer, had by now worked himself 

 into hard condition, though he was as thin as a rake. 

 But to-day, what with the long-tailed ducks, willow- 

 grouse, and goose of his mid-day meal, he had a load 

 which he found it very hard to carry over some places. 

 More than once he lay down nearly defeated. 



I ought to have said that on this morning, when wash- 

 ing my hands in a stream, I saw a small water-beetle, 

 shaped like our dyticus, swimming about ; but though 

 I tried to catch it, it eluded me successfully every time. 

 After all, we could not have preserved it, I fear; for 

 the boat had gone off with all the bottles, spirits, and 

 appliances of that kind. 



Now it chanced that at half-past nine in the evening 

 we were struggling through such a country as this, 

 when, on the top of a distant hill, a little peaked lump 

 came into view. Instantly my glass was at my eye. 

 The sling telescope which I carried had been used many 

 times a day. For at first we were always supposing that 

 we saw persons and reindeer. But the mirage was such 



