THE GREAT WHITE JOURNEY 225 



ice, like very cold molasses, hollows itself slowly down to the 

 mighty glacier itself. Here the fiercest storm that we had 

 encountered thus far burst upon us, and for three days we 

 were confined to our snow shelter, getting out as best we 

 could in occasional lulls in the storm to secure loose dogs and 

 endeavor to protect the loads upon the sledges from their 

 ravages. In this we were fairly successful, though we did not 

 succeed in preventing them from devouring some six pounds 

 of cranberry jam, and eating the foot off Gibson's sleeping- 

 bag. This storm over, we were not again troubled by really 

 violent storms during our northward march. 



On the 24th of May Dr. Cook and Gibson, who had formed 

 our supporting party, left us to return to Redcliffe, leaving 

 Astrup as my sole companion for the remainder of the jour- 

 ney. On the last day of May, from the dazzling surface 

 of the ice-cap we looked down into the basin of the Peter- 

 mann Glacier — the grandest amphitheater of snow and ragged 

 ice that human eye has ever seen, walled in the distance by a 

 Titan dam of black mountains, and all lit by the yellow mid- 

 night sunlight. Still keeping on to the northward, navigating 

 the ice as does the mariner the sea along an unknown coast, 

 we were befogged for two or three days in clouds and mists 

 which prevented us from seeing to any distance. As a result, 

 we approached too near the mountains of the coast, and got 

 entangled in the rough ice and crevasses of the Sherard Os- 

 borne Glacier system. Here we lost twelve or fourteen days 

 in our efforts to get back to the smooth, unbroken snow-cap 



