GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



lemming, its courage, its endurance and stubbornness, say of it 

 that it possesses the chest of a man, the beard of a seal, the feet 

 of a bear, and the teeth and tail of a hare — a characterization 

 of its appearance which is very striking. 



On the 2nd of June we must kill another four dogs, as 

 we are continually unable to find food. Ajako and Koch now 

 drive a team of ten dogs and I drive one of seven ; and although 

 this is yet a fair number, we need to be careful not to kill many 

 more for the time being. For if we are to drive and not to walk 

 on the return journey, with our collections and the food for our 

 dogs, we ought to have four sledges with seven dogs in each 

 team. The six musk-oxen which were killed by the mouth of 

 the fjord provided only three meals a team for our forty-four 

 dogs. We therefore decide to leave two rations at our old 

 camp, so that we shall not be quite without dog food when we 

 return later on to cross over to Chip Inlet. 



In spite of the unfortunate hazy weather which we have had, 

 we have succeeded in examining Nordenskjold Fjord, for a 

 fresh breeze has now and then lifted the clouds aside and given 

 us the necessary view. The nature corresponds on the whole to 

 what we observed round Victoria Fjord. The surrounding 

 land, with the exception of the quite small and barren brim 

 along the shore, is covered with glaciers ; and the fjord, which 

 ends in broad inland-ice, but behind which one can discern 

 Nunataker, is hardly more than 20 kilometres long. The extent 

 depends somewhat upon one's decision as to where the ocean- 

 ice proper is relieved by floating inland-ice. Five or six kilo- 

 metres inside our camp a big bank of ice-mountains shoots right 

 across the run, so that the passage is entirely blocked. As 

 these ice-mountains to a height of from 3 to 6 metres stand 

 closely by the main glacier itself — with deep snow in all crevices 

 and apparently being moved by the glacier just as is the floating 

 inland-ice in Victoria Fjord — one may decide that the real fjord 

 ends here. These ice-mountains make the passage further 

 ahead impossible. Thus no accession to the inland-ice is possible 

 from this point, and it follows as a matter of course that we 

 must give up every thought of pushing through to Inde- 

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