HOME TO THULE 



because of his worn-out clothes he endured an unusually hard 

 voyage in the cold autumn. The district round Cape Scott 

 was reached one of the last days in October, but unfortunately 

 it soon proved impossible to find the place where two months 

 ago we had parted from Wulff. At that time the land had 

 been quite snow-bare, but now there was much snow ; doughs 

 and stones were drifted over, so that the place was unrecog- 

 nizable, it being difficult to get a proper survey of the land 

 because of the faint daylight. Further search had to be given 

 up, and the expedition limited their activities to the fetching 

 of the collections near Cape Agassiz. All these arrived in 

 Thule in good condition in the middle of November. My own 

 journey from Etah to Thule, which was hampered in many 

 ways because of the season, I will describe by the following 

 notes from my diary : 



On the first of October I set out with the Etah sledges 

 across the fjord-ice to the glacier. We break up in a terrible 

 storm ; it always blows at Etah when there is a clear sky and 

 fine weather in other places. The storm and the drifting snow 

 pursue us right up to the inland-ice, where we pitch our tent 

 at three o'clock in the morning after fourteen hours' driving. 



A very cold night. 



As I have no sleeping-bag, I wake up with chattering teeth 

 after two hours' sleep, and propose to set off. We start at 

 seven o'clock in the morning after a few warming basins 

 of tea. 



Fine, calm weather, heavy going, a good deal of snow on 

 the glacier, but we decide to stick it — and we do stick it in 

 spite of laggard dogs — and arrive at the camp of Neqe, without 

 having had any more sleep, at four o'clock in the morning of 

 the 3rd. Great reception by women only. The men had 

 gone out hunting reindeer in Inglefield Land on the day 

 previous to our arrival. 



There was now new ice seaward as far as we could see, with 

 open water alongshore some way into the fjord. 



We remained at Neqe for a day, and were heartily enter- 



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