GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



summer. Similarly in Frankfield Bay, which with a narrow 

 mouth cuts broadly into the country. The background of 

 this country is formed by Mount Punch with its genially- 

 sounding name, lifting its snowy cap rakishly towards the 

 clouds. 



The wind appears to be the only guest in these harsh tracts 

 where even the snow is forbidden to lie as a cover for the sparse 

 vegetation — the charitable gift of summer to the insects, the 

 little birds, and the stray hares and lemmings. But there was 

 sufficient food for musk-ox, for wherever small, clough-like 

 hollows give shelter for the snow, or where a river forces its 

 way from some lake towards the ocean, there is plenty of grass 

 and willow. 



The result of the hunt was three lean ptarmigans. One of 

 these was so tame that Harrigan, stealthily creeping towards it, 

 got so near that he could easily take it with his hands. The 

 ptarmigans were boiled in our porridge and imparted to it, with 

 their keen delicious juices, a new and agreeable flavour. 



Our two tents were pitched under a steep ice-bank, screwed 

 up under the pressure of the Arctic Ocean to a height of 

 30 metres above the ice-foot. This bank looked phantastic with 

 its many knotted ice-blocks crawling over each other, and pro- 

 vided a welcome screen from the wind. The place is called, 

 quite appropriately, "Rest Point." The day's journey had 

 been fifteen hours long, and, after this last wandering across 

 the mountains, we all accepted the blissful rest which bathes 

 our tired limbs as a rain-shower a thirsty field. 



May 6th-7th. — It was six o'clock in the afternoon before 

 we were once more ready to start. 



Again on this day the ice-foot made travelling heavy. It 

 was almost impossible for the sledges to get along because of 

 all the sand and gravel blown on to the snow, and it was difficult 

 to make the dogs go ahead. The coast was desolate and cheer- 

 less, monotonous and depressing. The ice-foot on which we 

 travelled is along its inner edge covered by rather low rounded 

 heaps of gravel, without character and entirely without the 

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