216 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Bitter Cold. — Reindeer-shooting. — Three right and left Shots. 

 — Delight of the Sailors. — Black Fox. — Ponche a la Spitz- 

 berg. — Description of the Reindeer. — High Condition he at- 

 tains. — Excellence of his Flesh. — His Ignorance of Man. — 

 Anecdotes. — Fine Valley. — Unexplored Channel. — Near 

 Heinlopen Straits. — Unjust Attack. — Marrow-bones. — Ice- 

 borne Boulders. — Good " Bag." — Two singular Mountains. 

 — Thymen's Straits. — Meritorious Deer. — Receipt for Ka- 

 bobs. — Splendid deer Forest. — Rejoin the Sloop. 



By seven in the evening we had reached the an- 

 chorage opposite to a valley where I had killed 

 some reindeer in 1858, but, it being Sunday, we did 

 not land, nor was there any inducement to do so, 

 as we could see the entire valley with telescopes 

 from the deck, and there was not a single reindeer 

 visible in it. 



On the 25th we went ashore in both boats at 4 

 A.M. of a bitterly cold morning (thermometer 16° 

 in the companion-way). After hauling the boats 

 high and dry out of the reach of accidents, we ran 

 about to warm ourselves, and then, taking different 

 sides of a large wide valley, we proceeded to seek 

 for deer. Lord David unluckily got among ground 

 which had been hunted a few days previously (as 

 we afterward ascertained) by a boat's crew from 



