LAND AT LAST 371 



" We went on an excursion inland* yesterday to see 

 what our prospects might be if we should be forced to 

 spend a winter here. I had hoped to find flatter ice 

 farther in, but instead it grew worse and worse the 

 nearer we went to land, and right in by the headland it 

 was towering up, and almost impassable. The ice was 

 piled against the very wall of the glacier. We went up 

 on the glacier and looked at the sound to the north of 

 the headland. A little way in the ice appeared to be 

 flatter, more like fjord-ice, but nowhere could we see lanes 

 where there might be a chance of capturing seal. There 

 was no place for a hut either about here ; while, on the 

 other hand, we found on the south side of the headland 

 quite a smiling spot where the ground was fairly level, 

 and where there w^as some herbage, and an abundance of 

 moss and stones for building purposes. But outside it, 

 again, the ice towered up on the shore in chaotic con- 

 fusion on all sides. It was a little more level in the 

 direction of the fjord or sound which ran far inland to 

 the south, and there it soon turned to flat fjord-ice ; but 

 there were no lanes there either where we could hope to 

 capture seal. There did not seem much prospect of 

 game, but we comforted ourselves with the reflection that 

 there were tracks of bears in every direction, and bears 

 would, in case of necessity, be our one resource for both 

 food and clothes. In the cliffs above us crowds of little 



*On Helland's Foreland. 



