REINDEER-STALKING. 217 



Erics on's brig, and he consequently saw nothing, 

 and returned to the yacht about midday. 



I walked five or six miles, when I reached a high 

 glen among the hills, and close to the line of per- 

 petual snow and ice. It also snowed hard as we 

 walked up, and it was frightfully cold, as the wind 

 whistled down over the glaciers to the eastward of 

 us. The walking, however, was excellent, as the in- 

 tense frost had frozen the beastly, splashy, muddy, 

 mossy compound which in Spitzbergen represents 

 soil to the consistency of iron. 



I first found three indifferent young deer on an 

 open place where I could not approach nearer than 

 250 yards; but I managed to break the shoulder 

 of the best one, and I finished him off with another 

 shot. The other two ran up the glen in the mean 

 time, and I did not follow them, as I now observed 

 two much finer stags on a hill a mile off. I stalk- 

 ed up a little gully, which allowed me to approach 

 quite close to these deer unseen by them ; but the 

 instant I put up my head to look at them they took 

 the alarm, and were going best pace down a steep 

 hill when my bullets overtook them, and they both 

 rolled dead down the hill, going heels over head, 

 like rabbits, as they fell 



My boat's crew now set to work to gralloch these 

 deer, and to carry them down to the boat — half a 

 deer to a man — while I followed up the glen in 

 search of the two indifferent stags I had lost sight 

 of. I found them about two miles up, and close 



