ACltOSS MELTING ICE TO SUMMER VALLEY 



Twelve hours later Ajako returned to the tent tottering with 

 sleepiness. Not only had he found and shot the three oxen 

 which had tried to escape : he had also shot another three. Ail 

 the animals were skinned and cut up, and the meat had been laid 

 out in the sun to dry, so that it might not be destroyed by the 

 bluebottles which shoot up from the soil everywhere in the 

 vicinity of a piece of meat. 



To these good tidings he added smilingly that he had also 

 seen another herd of six musk-oxen, peacefully grazing near his 

 slaughter-ground, undisturbed by the hunt. These last animals 

 he judged it best to let live until the camp had been moved 

 nearer to that spot. 



To crown it all, he carried on his back, in addition to the 

 hearts and tongues of the newly-killed animals, two delicious 

 barnacle-geese which he had shot near to our tent on his 

 way home. 



He honestly deserved the twenty-four hours' sleep he had 

 after this excursion. 



Later on we moved the camp 10 kilometres ahead to a valley 

 in the vicinity of Cape May, off the point where both the killed 

 and the living oxen were found. We set out in glorious sun- 

 shine, and the good warmth which, during the last few days on 

 land, had baked right through our bodies, which were often 

 quite red and swollen after our wading trips, gave us new 

 strength for the coming toil. And that was urgently required, 

 for it took fifteen hours to cover the 10 kilometres through 

 water, ice-rivers, and nigged Polar-ice. We made ready for 

 the hunt when we had pitched our tent by the sea-ice. 



We were now able to face the coming week with calm minds. 

 There was a sufficiency of meat for men and dogs, and plenty of 

 work for the botanist of the expedition in the fertile, well- 

 watered valley. 



For the first time during our journey we all had real feelings 

 of summer with 7° (Cent.), and fine, calm, clear weather ; that 

 was why we called the valley with the name which sounds so 

 sweetly to an Arctic traveller, Summer Valley. 



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