150 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



flora of the northern temperate zone. Over similarly 

 formed expanses the landscape offers a most dismal 

 monotony. There is no variety, no shadow, no night. 

 There is notliing to hinder wind or light; over all rages 

 the wind, and otherwise there is an uncanny stillness. 

 All summer the single, endlessly long summer day is 

 illumined by the pale light of a mist-veiled sun. 



"But he who transfers his gaze from the distance to 

 an examination of the foreground, sees here and there 

 little spots of bloom of the delicate heather, water berries 

 or the clustering dryas. Here and there the white coral- 

 like reindeer moss bedecks the ground and now and then 

 a half-buried dwarf willow and other low, close-clinging 

 plants. Occasionally also are seen brilhant poppies, 

 mostly in the neighborhood of places where water trickles 

 in the early summer. At such localities a luxuriant 

 growth of grass takes the upper hand. The tussocks 

 increase in size to a diameter of about three feet and a 

 height of some eighteen inches, similar to the common 

 niggerhead of our swamps. Otherwise the bright green 

 coloring of the grass in more temperate climates is 

 replaced by brown and yellow which do not relieve the 

 dreariness of the landscape." 



Irkaipy, just east of which we now were, was the 

 farthest point reached by the celebrated Captain James 

 Cook on his last voyage of discovery in 1778 and called 

 by him Cape North. It has no other right to this dis- 

 tinctive title and is better known by the native name. 



We turned south and wound a tortuous way through 

 the closing pack toward the shore, where a lead of clear 

 water a few fathoms deep separated the land from the 

 heavy grounded ice. All day long we threaded this 

 passage, thanks to the '^Abler's" shoal draft of only 



