LAND AT LAST 405 



It was late before we turned in that night after hav- 

 ing skinned the bears, laid them in a heap, and covered 

 them with the skins to prevent the gulls from getting at 

 them. We slept well, for we had to make up for two 

 nights. 



It was not until September 2d that we could set to 

 work on the skinning of our walrus, which still lay in the 

 water. Close to our den there was an opening in the 

 strand-ice,* connecting the inner channel between the 

 strand-ice and the land with the outer sea. It was in 

 this opening that we had made it fast, and we hoped to 

 be able to draw it on land here; the glacier-ice went with 

 a gentle incline right out into the water, so that it seemed 

 to promise well. We rounded off the edge of the ice, 

 made a tackle by drawing the rope through a loop we 

 cut in the skin of the head, used our broken-off runner of 

 a sledge as a handspike at the end of the rope, and cut 

 notches in the ice up the beach as a fulcrum for the hand- 

 spike. But work and toil as we might, it was all we could 

 do to get the huge head up over the edge of the ice. In 

 the midst of this Johansen cried, " I say, look there!" I 

 turned. A large walrus was swimming straight up the 

 channel towards us. It did not seem to be in any hurry, 

 but only opened wide its round eyes, and gazed in aston- 



* Ice which is frozen fast to the bottom, and is therefore often left 

 lying like an icy base along the shore even after the sea is free from ice. 

 On account of the warm water which comes from the land, an open 

 channel is often formed between this ice-base and the shore. 



