THE HOMEWARD JOURNEY 



pletely exhausted by the time we find people, that neither of 

 us will have strength enough to return with the relief sledges. 

 These will have great difficulty in finding our comrades' camp 

 in this moraine tract, full of seas and knolls, so that one point 

 looks just like another. We must therefore agree upon a point 

 where those who are to be saved can be found without delay. 

 In the near neighbourhood it is impossible to point to such a 

 place ; but behind Cape Russell, in the immediate vicinity of 

 the inland-ice, there is a big lake known to Harrigan from 

 previous reindeer hunts, and with which all the inhabitants of 

 Etah are familiar. We decide that our comrades must move 

 by short journeys to this spot. If the place is not reached by 

 the time the relief sledges are expected to arrive, the two Green- 

 landers can easily be sent ahead to communicate with the relief 

 party. 



I advise my comrades not to take too long a rest ; when in 

 our exhausted condition one suddenly omits to keep the body in 

 motion, the weariness with all its pains will be felt doubly when 

 once more one has to continue the journey. The ammunition 

 is distributed so that Dr. Wulff 's party gets eighty cartridges 

 of small shot and forty rifle cartridges, which should be suffi- 

 cient for the period of waiting, whilst I myself take a Win- 

 chester and thirty cartridges. As soon as all the details are 

 arranged the three Eskimos set out hunting whilst we others 

 remain to arrange the baggage. . . . 



Early in the morning of the 25th I go up into the moun- 

 tains to look out for the hunters, and meet Ajako some distance 

 inland with a first bag of five hares. The next few days again 

 seem lighter to us. May Ajako and I have strength to get 

 quickly into communication with people and get speedy relief 

 for our comrades ! 



The fog has been lying thickly across the land since we 

 arrived, but about six o'clock in the afternoon it clears up some- 

 what, and in order to make the most possible out of our oppor- 

 tunity to get a view of the land, which neither Ajako nor I 

 know, we set out on our walk. We bring merely the strictly 

 necessary things — our kamiks, my diaries, and nothing else. 



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