THE BOAT JOURNEY 
level. The weather continued fine and calm, and as the ridges 
drew nearer and the western coast of the island spread out 
below, the bright moonlight showed us that the interior was 
broken tremendously. High peaks, impassable clifis, steep 
snow-slopes, and sharply descending glaciers were prominent 
features in all directions, with stretches of snow-plain over- 
laying the ice-sheet of the interior. The slope we were ascending 
mounted to a ridge and our course lay direct to the top. The 
moon, which proved a good friend during this journey, threw 
a long shadow at one point and told us that the surface was 
broken in our path. Warned in time, we avoided a huge hole 
capable of swallowing an army. The bay was now about 
three miles away, and the continued roaring of a big glacier 
at the head of the bay came to our ears. This glacier, which 
we had noticed during the stay at Peggotty Camp, seemed 
to be calving almost continuously. 
I had hoped to get a view of the country ahead of us from 
the top of the slope, but as the surface became more level 
beneath our feet, a thick fog drifted down. The moon became 
obscured and produced a diffused light that wa ^ more trying 
than darkness, since it illuminated the fog witliout guiding our 
steps. We roped ourselves together as a piecaution against 
holes, crevasses, and precipices, and I broke trail through the 
soft snow. With almost the full length of the rope between 
myself and the last man we were able to steer an approximately 
straight course, since, if I veered to the right or the left when 
marching into the blank wall of the fog, the last man on the 
rope could shout a direction. So, hke a ship with its port/' 
" starboard," " steady," we tramped through the fog for the 
next two hoiurs. 
Then, as daylight came, the fog thinned and lifted, and from 
an elevation of about 3000 ft. we looked down on what seemed 
to be a huge frozen lake with its farther shores still obscured 
by the fog. We halted there to eat a bit of biscuit while we 
discussed whether we would go down and cross the flat surface 
of the lake, or keep on the ridge we had already reached. I 
decided to go down, since the lake lay on our course. After an 
hour of comparatively easy travel through the snow we noticed 
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