WRECKED ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND 



About two-thirds of the distance up the fiord there was 

 a favorite haunt of various kinds of birds. At the time 

 of our visit kittiwakes were there in countless numbers. 

 The perpendicular precipices, for a mile or more in length 

 and more than a thousand feet in height, were completely 

 covered with their nests wherever there was a crag upon 

 which they could be built. Indeed, the face of the cliffs was 

 white with these birds as they struggled with each other 

 to secure places for temporary rest, while the neighboring 

 waters were covered with those who were seeking for food 

 or were enjoying the luxury of a cold bath. The firing of 

 our guns would be the signal for the whole colony to rise 

 into the air, when it would seem as if a cloud had suddenly 

 cut us off from the sunlight, while the sound of their 

 strange voices, the note of which is suggested in their 

 name, filled the air and completed a scene that cannot be 

 equaled in interest outside of Greenland. 



The day upon the glacier was exhilarating in the ex- 

 treme. After clambering over the crevasses and pinnacles 

 of ice which obstructed our course for the first half mile, 

 we saw a clear way before us between two medial moraines 

 which came down from a high nunatak, or crest of rock, 

 in the distance. While crossing one of these moraines, 

 picking our way between its vast piles of stones, the two 

 Eskimo who had accompanied us thus far began to lose 

 courage, and in the true native style attempted to disguise 

 their real state of mind by calling attention to their boots, 

 saying that they were " no good," every once in a while 

 uttering this ejaculation and pointing to their upturned 

 soles with a despondent look. Of course we humored 

 them, and permitted them to sit down with some of our 

 superfluous luggage to guard. Here they remained all 

 day long, apparently not having stirred from their tracks 

 until we hailed them on our return. 



We followed up the vast glacier to the nunatak, which 

 proved to be fully seven miles back from the front and 

 to about equally divide the vast ice streams which poured 

 down on either side of it. The total width of the glacier 

 at this point we estimated to be six or seven miles, and at 

 the base of the nunatak we were not far from two thousand 

 feet above sea level. Eastward there was nothing but the 



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