GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



goal was reached, again sang through all our being. The 

 weather was bad, showers of wet snow drifted over us, and the 

 going was heavy and miserable. All through the day we labour 

 ahead through the showers, which for hours rob us of any view ; 

 but as we have no time to waste, we wade stubbornly through 

 the snow. When occasionally the thick weather eases, the 

 most beautiful landscape is unveiled before us ; in Mascart 

 Inlet we are everywhere surrounded by high, cone-like, snow- 

 clad mountains, furrowed by many clefts which create life and 

 change in the monotony. At the head of the inlet we see the 

 place where the channel of the whirlpool runs out, and in this 

 we find the solution of the problem of the open water, which in 

 the beginning puzzled us. 



Out in the middle of Mascart Inlet we meet with a depress- 

 ing sight. On a high hummock of ice we find the sledge which 

 our comrades had had to leave. Poor litter of various kinds 

 is deposited by its side to lighten it, but the most pathetic sight 

 is the carcase of a poor dog which had tried in vain to follow 

 the tracks of its masters from Cape Payer, to reach exhausted 

 this sledge where nothing eatable was to be found. Summon- 

 ing its last strength, it had crawled up on the transom, where on 

 our arrival we found it dead. 



The storm seems constantly to grow worse ; the squalls of 

 wind whip our faces with wet snow ; and as at last our clothing 

 suffers too severely, we have, much against our will, to pitch 

 our tent already by Low Point. Here we find our comrades' 

 camp of starvation, which does not need commentaries ; strewn 

 about were the bones of the many dogs which had had to die to 

 be eaten by their comrades and the four men who, in spite of 

 their persistence, were unable to find sufficient food. 



From the top of a small mountain we discover, rather close 

 to land, a small seal which has crawled up onto the ice in spite 

 of wind and weather. It is on good ice and the mere sight of 

 it makes us imagine that we have already skinned it and put 

 it in the pan, for none of us doubt but that, in the course of an 

 hour or so, it will be our prey. We soon find, however, that 

 it is an animal just as fond of its life as are the rest of us ; 

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