THE JOURNEY SOUTHWARD 493 



side of an island to the west, or whether we ouoht to 

 travel southward upon the shore-ice along the land. We 

 came to a headland consisting of uncommonl)^ marked 

 columnar basalt, which on account of its peculiar form 

 we called the " Castle." * We here saw that the land 

 stretched farther in a southerly direction, and that the 

 open water went the same way, only separated from 

 the land by a belt of shore-ice. As the latter appeared 

 to be full of cracks, we decided to go over to the isl- 

 and in the west, and put to sea as quickly as possible. 

 We therefore returned and made all ready. Our prep- 

 arations consisted, first and foremost, in carefully calk- 

 ing the seams of our kayaks by melting stearine over 

 them, and then restowing the cargo so as to leave room 

 for us to sit in them. The following day (Sunday, 

 May 24th) we moved on westward towards the island, 

 and as the wind was easterly and we were able to 

 employ sails on the sledges we got on pretty quickly 

 across the flat ice. As we approached the island, how- 

 ever, a storm blew up from the southwest, and after 

 the sledges had upset several times we were obliged 

 to take down our sails. The sky became overcast, 

 the air grew misty, and we worked our way against 

 the strong wind in towards the land. The thing was 

 to get to land as quickly as possible, as we might evi- 

 dently expect bad weather. But now the ice became 



* Jackson's "Cape M'Clintock." 



