GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



and no longer existed. We could now see far ahead, and with 

 the wide view came that excitement of travel which always 

 carries one across dead points ; it was as if suddenly we 

 approached our fate with visors raised, in a manner much more 

 dauntless than before. 



Quite near us we saw St. George Fjord, narrow as a river 

 of ice cutting into the land, encircled by high mountains, which, 

 with steep fells seaward, run right in to the inland-ice. 



Dragon Point juts out like a wedge between this narrow 

 fjord and the broad, far more impressive Sherard Osborne 

 Fjord, where the broad lines, with the quiet country behind 

 Cape May, put one in a mood quite different to the one created 

 by the wild St. George Fjord. There is a breadth here and a 

 depth, a wild monumental grandeur which fascinates one, 

 especially when one looks upon it from this point and contrasts 

 it with the rest of the landscape. Far seaward one gets a glimpse 

 of Beaumont Island's sharp profile, like a clenched fist in the 

 midst of eternal snow. Even the highest mountains here do 

 not seem to be covered with snow, thus forming an agreeable 

 contrast to the white immensity spreading out at their feet. 

 Across the lowland behind Cape May, where the cone- 

 shaped Cape Hooker dominates the horizon, we discern Cape 

 Britannia's gimlet-pointed peaks on John Murray Island near 

 the mouth of Nordenskjold Fjord. 



The sky was dazzlingly clear, the air deep blue and fresh, 

 and it was as if the wind itself had other songs here than on the 

 dead coasts from which we had come. On the uttermost 

 horizon of the iee-ocean one sees occasional mirages lifting the 

 sun-bathed pack-ice up towards heaven, giving relief to the 

 monotony which rests over the frost-bound ocean. The im- 

 mensity, the power and violence which Nature breathes here, 

 where we have halted for a moment so as to take possession of 

 all these new things, communicates itself to our will ; and with 

 the enthusiasm only known by men who have dared to leave the 

 high road for the by-ways, we approach the land which holds 

 our future fate. 



The glorious immensity gives us new power, and merrily 

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