1876 GREENLAND SLEDGE JOURNEY. 99 



my own mind which to follow I felt how powerless I 

 was, single-handed, to follow out such numerous and 

 extensive lines of exploration. I was most anxious to 

 reach Mount Hooker, as I considered that from its 

 summit I should not only see the islands to the north, 

 but get the best idea of the trend of the mainland ; at 

 the same time I felt I could not leave these wide and 

 deep fiords behind me, any one of which might be a 

 through passage ; so, holding to my original plan, we 

 started for Cape Cleveland. 



4 On our way we passed some most remarkable ice- 

 hills, which from a distance we had taken for islands. 

 Some stood singly, huge masses of solid blue ice rising 

 gently, with rounded outlines, from thirty to forty feet 

 above the floe ; others, grouped together, looked like a 

 mountainous country in miniature, and formed far too 

 formidable a barrier for us to overcome. 



' Up to the 16th of May the travelling since 

 leaving Cape Fulford had been pretty good and the 

 progress fair, but that same evening when we started 

 again it was through soft snow about eighteen inches 

 deep ; this was very disappointing, for the floe looked 

 most promising ; in fact, the whole of this vast tract as 

 far as we could see, from Mount May to Cape Buttress, 

 was one level plain, over which we expected to travel 

 easily and rapidly. We pushed on, hoping for better 

 things, and at camping time had reached, not the 

 island we had started for that we had missed in a dense 

 fog but another smaller one, about one and-a-half 

 miles west of it. The travelling had become worse and 

 worse, the snow varied from two and-a-half to four and- 

 a-half feet in thickness, and was no longer crisp and 



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