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glacier again, driving behind Quinisut, and by this way reach 

 right into the head of Inglefield Gulf, which should now be 

 covered with ice. 



We spent a day in seeking a point of ascent to the glacier, 

 and at length we succeeded in finding a place where we decided 

 to make the attempt, although it did not look very inviting. 

 Steep glacier-edge in which we had to hew steps ; slippery blue 

 ice where we must keep our balance, in constant danger of 

 sliding down again. For 1 kilometre we had to carry our goods 

 on our backs across a steep mountain and through soft snow. 

 At length, after four hours of toil, we were so high up that we 

 reached the snow and soon we could begin to drive. In the 

 evening, as darkness fell, we drove down across a snow-bare 

 mountain-land littered with big, loose stones which often rolled 

 down, racing with ourselves when the sledge or the dogs hap- 

 pened to loosen them. Along a river we reached the coast, 

 and on the following day we intended to try the ice. At dawn, 

 after a good night's sleep in warm musk-ox skins, we attempted 

 the fjord-ice. Alas, neither would this earn 7 us ! 



Wait we would not, so we had to get up across the ice, first 

 along the glacier up to the funny mountain crags of Qatarssuit, 

 so named because at a distance they look like two buckets 

 turned upside down. But now we found it impossible to 

 descend the glacier. After a few hours' search in a snowstorm, 

 which fell on us with such violent gusts that often we were 

 blown off our feet, we found at last a river-course which went 

 right into the glacier like a big artistically bored hole. From 

 this opening one looked into a black bottomless gap ; but we 

 reckoned out that the river, when at some time it bored through 

 the inland-ice, must have burst for itself an outlet by the 

 moraine. With a strap round our waists we therefore let our- 

 selves slide on to this toboggan run and rush into the darkness, 

 an adventurous race which ended in us suddenly finding our- 

 selves hovering in the air above the moraine as if spewed out 

 from the gap of the monster. We then increased the length 

 of the line and slowly let ourselves down to the fjord. In the 

 same way all the dogs and sledges were gradually transported, 

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