LAND AT LAST 369 



the winter on ; around us impassable ice, and our prov- 

 ender very much on the decHne. The south coast of 

 the country and Eira Harbor now appeared to our im- 

 agination a veritable land of Canaan, and we thought 

 that if only we were there all our troubles would be over. 

 We hoped to be able to find Leigh Smith's hut there, or, 

 at any rate, some remains of it, so that we should have 

 something to live in ; and we also hoped that where there 

 no doubt was much open water it would be easy to find 

 game. We regretted not having shot some seals while 

 they were numerous ; on the night when we left our last 

 camping -place there were plenty of them about. As 

 Johansen was standing on the edge of the ice doing 

 something to his kayak, a seal came up just in front of 

 him. He thought it was of a kind he had not seen be- 

 fore, and shouted to me. But at the same moment up 

 came one blacl-: poll after another quiet and silent, from 

 ten to twenty in number, all gazing at him with their 

 great eyes. He was quite nonplussed, thought there was 

 something uncanny about it, and then they disappeared 

 just as noiselessly as they had come. 



" I consoled him by telling him they really were of 

 a kind we had not seen before on our journey ; they 

 were young harp, or saddleback seal {Phoca groenlan- 

 dica). We saw several schools of them again later in 

 the day. 



" Meanwhile we killed time as best we could — chiefly 



by sleeping. On the early morning of the 21st, just as I 

 11.-24 



