WASHINGTON LAND TO HALL LAND 



rise to the greatest tragedy which has ever been played in these 

 regions. 



The ground on which we stand is dearly paid for; its 

 exploration has cost the life of many a brave young man of 

 iron will. But for each one who fell there were others who 

 offered to take his place ; thus our knowledge of the northern- 

 most regions of the earth moves farther and farther North. 



North ! North ! 



From our tent-camp in towards Cape Tyson the land 

 stretches itself in soft, even lines. This landscape, which is 

 merely a desert of stone and sand, has the contours of a gentle 

 sea swell. 



At Cape Tyson the panorama changes in character. Wild 

 mountains lie inward toward the inland-ice by the bight of 

 Petermann Fjord, darkly edging its blue, glistening ice. 

 Against this background big rolling clouds drive out from the 

 fjord where the air never seems to be at peace ; and while we 

 are lying far outside the mouth of the fjord in golden spring, 

 the colours of the storm above the cliffs change in threatening 

 hues. 



Much more fertile looks Grant Land, this no less historic 

 place, separated from us merely by the narrow Robeson 

 Channel. Here, again, the mountains are grandly and phan- 

 tastically formed, whilst the even land sweeps away in all 

 directions. 



Westward, through broad doughs, we catch a glimpse of 

 the valleys where hundreds of musk-ox graze on the banks of 

 broad rivers, and where thousands of hares tumble like a ravine 

 of snow down to the plains, curious and over-eaten, white, 

 woolly hordes, often of such enormous size that it seems as if 

 the earth itself were alive. 



And all this huge, white landscape somehow seems to 

 gather round the tall Ballot Island, which in the mouth of Lady 

 Franklin Bay lifts its head like a sky-scraping monument over 

 man's fight for the North Pole. A memorial here by the very 

 threshold where the word is always : 



North, North, farther North ! 



79 



