NO DEER TO BE FOUND. 
311 
“ reaching the middle of it, we came to a surface of 
“ solid ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which 
“ we launched with astonishing velocity, but happily 
“ escaped without injury. The men whom we left below, 
“ viewed this latter movement with astonishment and 
“ fear.” 
So universally does this strange land bristle with 
peaks and needles of stone, that the views we ourselves 
obtained—though perhaps from a lower elevation, and 
certainly without the risk—scarcely yielded either in 
extent or picturesque grandeur to the scene described 
by Dr. Scoresby. 
Having pretty well overrun the country to the 
northward, without coming on any more satisfactory 
signs of deer than their hoof-prints in the moss—we 
returned on board. The next day—but I need not 
weary you with a journal of our daily proceedings—for 
however interesting each moment of our stay in Spitz- 
bergen was to ourselves, as much perhaps from a vague 
expectation of what we might see, as from anything we 
actually did see—a minute account of every walk we 
took, and every bone we picked up, or every human 
skeleton we came upon, would probably only make you 
