DENSE AND SUDDEN FOG. 159 



CHAPTER XI. 



Dense and- sudden Fog. — Our Hours and Habits. — Supplies 

 run short. — Meet the Yacht. — Their bad Success in Sport. — 

 Novel Bullet-mould. — Geological Specimens. — Part com- 

 pany again. — Medical Treatment of sick Men. — Water up. 

 — News. — Old Acquaintance. — Gradual Extinction of the 

 Walrus. — They are receding farther North. — Nova Zembla. 

 — Illness of young Bear. — Attempt to escape. — Aged Bull- 

 Walrus. — His probable Reminiscences. — Coal and Fossils. — 

 Commander Gillies' Land. — Northeast Spitzbergen. — Bear 

 shot from the Deck of the Sloop. 



The thickest fog which I ever saw, even in the 

 Spitzbergen seas, came suddenly down upon us from 

 the northeast while we were seven or eight miles 

 absent from the sloop on the 2d. 



I had killed one large seal, and was looking for- 

 ward with pleasure to killing five or six others 

 which we had marked, when the fog came down like 

 a curtain upon us, and, the ice being very intricate, 

 it was hopeless to attempt looking for the seals ; so 

 we made the best of our way to the sloop. "We 

 had, of course, carefully taken the bearings by com- 

 pass, and we rowed accordingly for two hours and 

 a quarter. I then thought we must have made the 

 distance, so I fired two shots into the air, and was 

 immediately answered by the people on board the 

 sloop ; we had hit her off to within half a mile ! 



