LAND AT LAST 339 



wind was so good that we ought to make use of it, and 

 so we rigged up a sail on our fleet. We ghded easily 

 before the wind in towards the land we had so longed for 

 all these many months. What a change, after having 

 forced one's way inch by inch and foot b}^ foot on ice ! 

 The mist had hidden the land from us for a while, but 

 now it parted, and we saw the glacier rising straight in 

 front of us. At the same moment the sun burst forth, 

 and a more beautiful morning I can hardly remember. 

 We were soon underneath the glacier, and had to lower 

 our sail and paddle westward along the wall of ice, which 

 was from 50 to 60 feet in height, and on which a landing 

 was impossible. It seemed as if there must be little 

 movement in this o^lacier ; the water had eaten its wav 

 deep underneath it at the foot, and there was no noise 

 of falling fragments or the cracking of crevasses to be 

 heard, as there generally is with large glaciers. It was 

 also quite even on the top, and no crevasses were to be 

 seen. Up the entire height of the wall there was strati- 

 fication, which was unusually marked. We soon dis- 

 covered that a tidal current was running westAvard along 

 the wall of the glacier with great rapidity, and took ad- 

 vantage of it to make good progress. To find a camp- 

 ing-ground, however, was not easy, and at last we were 

 reduced to taking up our abode on a drifting floe. It 

 was glorious, though, to go to rest in the certainty that 

 we should not wake to drudgery in the drift-ice. 



" When we turned out to-day we found that the ice 



