REACHING THE GOAL 119 
must be tired of reading about this walk. So we will 
hurry on. 
At noon, then, we got under way. Crossing a small 
plain, we rose some exceedingly difficult-hills. It was a 
constant struggle with snow defiles, with sudden drops 
and weary climbings, or with sinkings deep into mud 
puddings as a little bit of change. 
Old Sailor, who. left the ship as fat as an alderman, for 
he was a sad galley-loafer, had by now worked himself 
into hard condition, though he was as thin as a rake, 
But to-day, what with the long-tailed ducks, willow- 
grouse, and goose of his mid-day meal, he had a load 
which he found it very hard to carry over some places. 
More than once he lay down nearly defeated. 
I ought to have said that on this morning, when wash- 
ing my hands in a stream, I saw a small water-beetle, 
shaped like our dyticus, swimming about; but though 
I tried to catch it, it eluded me successfully every time. 
After all, we could not have preserved it, I fear; for 
the boat had gone off with all the bottles, spirits, and 
_appliances of that kind. 
Now it chanced that at half-past nine in the evening 
we were struggling through such a country as this, 
when, on the top of a distant hill, a little peaked lump 
came into view. Instantly my glass was at my eye. 
The sling telescope which I carried had been used many 
times a day. For at first we were always supposing that 
we saw persons and reindeer. But the mirage was such 
