mount misery. 
283 
bergen, what would be the chance of getting to the 
land by going further north ? Now that we had re¬ 
ceived ocular proof of the veracity of the Hammerfest 
skipper in this first particular,—was it likely that we 
should have the luck to find the remainder of his 
story untrue? According to the track he had jotted 
down for me on the chart, the ice in front stretched 
right away west in an unbroken line, to the wall of 
ice which we had seen running into the north, from 
the upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week had elapsed 
since he had actually ascertained the impracticability 
of reaching a higher latitude,—what likelihood could 
there be of a channel having been opened up to the 
northward during so short an interval ? Such was the 
series of insoluble problems by which I posed myself, 
as we stood vainly smacking our lips at the island, 
which lay so tantalizingly beyond our reach. 
Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might 
appear, it would not do to throw a chance away,—so 
I determined to put the schooner round on the other 
tack, and run westwards along the edge of the ice, 
until we found ourselves again in the Greenland sea. 
Bidding, therefore, a last adieu to Mount Misery, as its 
