DE LONG FJORD TO CAPE SALOR 



of Nordenskjold Fjord, where on the outward journey we 

 cached some clothes and other property which was not required 

 for the journey ; they returned at midnight with a hunting-bag 

 of eight hares and one ptarmigan. At the same time Harrigan 

 shot a seal a short distance from our tent, so that conditions for 

 acquiring food now seem promising. 



During camp-life a fire, crackling and sparkling and with 

 smoke which rises straight in the air, is the thing which most 

 tenderly attunes one's feelings. One understands the offerings 

 of the ancients when, with the holy fire and smoke, they sent 

 their message up in the air towards all that which they did not 

 understand. But though we have become less naive, we 

 cannot get away from the worship of nature which this atmo- 

 sphere forces on to us. Our mind is moved ; in our thoughts we 

 write poems, some light and happy, others heavy and sad ; but, 

 wherever inspiration may lead us, something is roused in our 

 inmost being, created by the fire. And not least in nature like 

 this, where one stands as a puny being, forced to fight a daily 

 battle against forces stronger than oneself. Life always seems 

 to hang by a thread, because the day's coming events are so un- 

 certain and so far beyond one's own control ; and this it is which, 

 more than the many intensive joys one experiences, stamps 

 one's thoughts and feelings up here. 



A strange country ! We are now in the month of July, but, 

 notwithstanding this, large expanses are yet covered with snow 

 to such an extent that one prefers to move about on snowshoes 

 or skis. The flowers are not merely patient, they even put 

 all their strength in opposition to their mortal enemy, and grow 

 and blossom in many places in the midst of the snow. 



A large country, which seems doubly large to him who must 

 struggle forth along its coasts, with open and wide horizons 

 which through fjords and bays run up across the inland-ice to 

 meet the sky in a dazzling distancy which makes one's eyes ache. 

 Steep, reddish-brown cliffs shoot up from the sea as blockading 

 walls, desirous of restricting the view ; but in the midst of the 

 mountains' barrenness, the sun splashes its colours so that the 



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