16 NORDENSKJOLD'S AND BERGGREN'S JOURNEY. 



of by us to climb up. But in order not immediately to terrify the 

 Greenlanders by choosing the way over the frightful and dangerous 

 clefts, we determined to abandon this comparatively smooth ground, 

 and at first take a southerly direction parallel with the chasms, and 

 afterwards turn to the east. We gained our object by avoiding the 

 chasm, but fell in instead with extremely rough ice. We now under- 

 stood what the Greenlanders meant when they endeavoured to dis- 

 suade us from the journey on the ice, by sometimes lifting their 

 hands over their heads, sometimes sinking them down to the ground, 

 accompanied by to us an unintelligible talk. They meant by this to 

 describe the collection of closely-heaped pyramids and ridges of ice 

 over which we had now to walk. The inequalities of the ice were, 

 it is true, seldom more than 40 feet high, with an inclination of 

 25° to 30°. But one does not get on very fast when one has con- 

 tinually to drag a heavily-laden sledge up so irregular an acclivity, 

 and immediately after to endeavour to get down uninjured, at the 

 risk of getting one's legs broken, when occasionally losing one's 

 footing on the here often very slippery ice, in attempting to mode- 

 rate the speed of the downward-rushing sledge. Had we used an 

 ordinary sledge, it would have been immediately broken to pieces ; 

 but as the component parts of our sledge were not nailed, but tied 

 together, it held together at least for some hours. 



Already the next day we perceived the impossibility, under such 

 circumstances, of dragging with us the thirty days' provisions with 

 which we had furnished ourselves, especially as it was evident that, 

 if we wished to proceed further, we must transform ourselves from 

 draught to pack horses. We, therefore, determined to leave the 

 sledge and part of the provisions, take the rest on our shoulders, and 

 proceed on foot. We got on quicker, though for a sufficiently long 

 time over ground as bad as before. The ice became gradually 

 smoother, and was broken by large bottomless chasms, which one 

 must either jump with a heavy load on one's back — in which case 

 woe to him who made a false step — or else make a long circuit to 

 avoid. After two hours' wandering the region of clefts was passed. 

 We, however, in the course of our journey, very frequently met with 

 portions of similar ground, though none of any very great extent. 

 We were now at a height of more than 800 feet above the level of 

 the sea. Further inward the surface of the ice, except the occa- 

 sionally-recurring cleft, resembled that of a stony sea-midden, bound 

 in fetters by the cold. The rise upwards was still quite perceptible, 

 though frequently interrupted by shallow valleys, the centres of 

 which were occupied by several lakes or ponds, with no apparent 

 outlet, though they received water from innumerable rivers running 



