YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE FIRST CROSSING OF
SPITSBERGEN

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Winterers' Sloop frozen up in Advent Bay

Qy

The FIRST CROSSING
of SPITSBERGEN
Being an Account of an Inland Journey of Exploration and
Survey, with Descriptions of several Mountain Ascents, of Boat
Expeditions in Ice Fjord, of a Voyage to North -East-Land,
the Seven Islands, down Hinloopen Strait, nearly to Wiches
Land, and into most of the Fjords of Spitsbergen, and of an
almost complete circumnavigation of the main Island. By
Sir William Martin Conway
M.A., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., Sometime Roscoe Professor of
Art, University College, Liverpool
With Contributions by J. W. Gregory, D.Sc.
A. Trevor-Battye, and
E. J. Garwood

Together with Eight Coloured Plates reproduced in facsimile from
Sketches by H. E. Conway, Two Maps, and about One Hundred
Full-Page and Text Illustrations from Photographs and Sketches

MDCCCXCVII
LONDON ^— . J. M. DENT & CO.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

PREFACE
IHE maps which accompany this volume were en
graved for the Royal Geographical Society, and are
here reproduced by its permission. Two illustrations
made from drawings by Mr. A. D. MacCormick,
my old Himalayan companion, originally appeared in
the " Alpine four nal" and I am indebted to the
Editor of that publication for permission to use them.
I must also not omit to thank Mr. Trevor-Batty e
for the drawing of Wiches Land which is here
reproduced. W. M. C.

C 0 N T E N-.T S

CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY 
II. LONDON TO THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
III. TO SPITSBERGEN .....
IV. ICE FJORD . ....
V. ADVENT BAY TO CAIRN CAMP .
VI. ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TO LOW SOUND .
VII. ADVENT VALE TO THE SASSENDAL ,
VIII. THE ASCENT OF STICKY KEEP .
IX. ASCENT OF GRIT RIDGE
X. THE TRIDENT . ....
XI. FULMAR VALLEY
XII. THE IVORY GATE
XIII. RETURN TO WATERFALL CAMP
XIV. WATERFALL CAMP TO ICE FJORD
XV. MOUNT LUSITANIA .
XVI. BY SASSEN BAY
XVII. BACK TO ADVENT POINT
XVIII. REPORT UPON EKMAN BAY AND DICKSON BAY (BY
A. TREVOR-BATTYE) ......

PAGE I
r3
29
5362
81
102116
127
140 i57
172
184
J95
206217
228
238

viii CONTENTS
CHAP. 1'AOE
XIX. AT ADVENT POINT ... 252
XX. ADVENT BAY TO THE SEVEN ISLANDS . . 265
XXI. HINLOOPEN STRAIT AND WIJDE BAY . . .282
XXII. THE WESTERN BAYS OF SPITSBERGEN . . . 300
XXIII. HORN SOUND AND HOME . . . . -313
XXIV. THE ASCENT OF MOUNT HEDGEHOG, OR HORNSUNDS
TIND (BY E. J. GARWOOD) . . -323
XXV. SPITSBERGEN AS A SUMMER RESORT . -337
APPENDIX  THE NOMENCLATURE OF SPITSBERGEN . 35 1
INDEX . . 365

LIST OF COLOURED PLATES

The Winterers' Sloop frozen up in Advent Bay frontispiece
The Glaciers of Cape Boheman, from Advent
Point  facing p. 81
Ice-Foot at Cape Waern . . . . . „ 116
A Glacier in Ekman Bay  ,,184
Colosseum Mountain from Ekman Bay . . „ 225
Mountains behind Cape Boheman, from Cape
Waern  „ 238
Dickson Sound  „ 256
Advent Hills, from Advent Point . . . „ 313

MAPS
Sketch Map of the Mountains along the Shores
of Wijde Bay, Spitsbergen . . . facing p. 292
Sketch Map of Part of Spitsbergen . . . „ 348
Surveyed by Sir Martin Conway.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Illustrations marked with an asterisk are reproduced from
Drawings by Mr. H. E. Conway.

*Camp Scene .
?Sketching under Difficulties
J. T. Studley .
?Unpacking?Pedersen?A Whaling Establishment
*Drift Ice off Spitsbergen
Floating Ice
The North Coast of Ice Fjord, at the Entrance
*Mount Starashchin
Russian Valley and Mount Starashchin
*The Summit of Mount Starashchin
Entering Ice Fjord, looking North
The Tomb of the Skipper
The Survivors and their Hut .
?Striking Camp
Advent Point Camp
?Ice in Advent Bay .
Ponies stuck in Bogs and Snow
Advent Bay in August, Bunting Bluff in the Distance
Crossing a Flooded Torrent
Advent Bay from Cairn Camp
?Mountains near Advent Yale
?The Summit of Fox Peak
Descending Plough Glacier in Fog
Torrent in an Ice-Foot ... . .
The Valley of the Shallow River
?An Inland Camp ... ...
?On the Way to Sassen Bay

PAGE I
13
2529
3538404243
4447 5o
5457
60
6263 66
69 73 77
79 S3 S5
91 9397
102
103

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

XI

Advent Vale from Cairn Camp . . . 105
The Baldhead from Brent Pass . . . .108
?Stuck in a Snow-Bog ... . . 109
The Snout of Booming Glacier — Brent Pass in the Distance . 1 to
Looking down the Sassendal . . . . . 113
Cauldron Waterfall 114
?Dr. Gregory . . . . 115
?On the Top of Sticky Keep . . 116
Booming Glacier, The Baldhead, and Fox Peak from Sticky Keep 117
From Sticky Keep, looking across the Sassendal to the Colorado
Plateau . . ..118
?Sticky Keep and the Sassendal from Grit Ridge . 119
Looking South from the top of Sticky Keep . 121
?Reindeer. ... . . .122
Waterfall Camp and the Sassendal . . . 125
Looking up the Sassendal 1 26
?After the Day's March . 127
?Garwood slipping into the Torrent . . . . 131
Probing for hidden Crevasses . . . 135
Mount Marmier and the Colorado Plateau seen across the Sas
sendal from Mount Lusitania . ... . 137
*Haircutting ... . 139
?Looking south-east from the Trident 140
?Wading a Torrent .... . . . 143
?Gregory starting for Advent Bay . 151
?Advent Point Camp . . . . . 156
An Easy Spell in Fulmar Valley . .169
?Good Going . . . ... 172
Agardh Bay from the Ivory Gate ... . . 176
Descending the Face of Ivory Glacier . 179
The Terminal Moraine of the Ivory Glacier . 180
The Sassendal and Sassen Bay from Sticky Keep . . . -195
Gips Bay and Temple Mountain from Sassen Bay . . . 196
From a Drawing by Mr. A. D. MacCormick.
Post Glacier and Temple Bay from Sassen Bay ... 199
From a Drmvingby Mr. A. D. MacCormick.
Sassen Bay ....  200
Gap between Baldhead and Booming Glaciers . . 202
Looking South- West from Mount Lusitania . . . . 206
?Flower Pass .  . 210

xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Looking up De Geer Valley .... • 2I4
Hyperite Waterfall . . . • ... 216
Temple Bay from Corrie Down • • • 2I9
Advent Bay Hills seen from Corrie Down . • • 22°
Cliffs near Hyperite Hat . . • 233
Abandoned Winterers' Hut • • 23^
?Head of Wijde Bay 239
The Expres in Advent Bay • 255
The Graves of the Winterers at Advent Point . • 259
?Walden Island . • 265
?One of the Seven Icebergs . 269
?Herr Andree's Balloon House 272
Drift Ice off Spitsbergen 275
Rocks of Walden Island. ... 279
Ruins of the Wellman Hut on Walden Island . . 280
Wiche Land  282
From a Sketch by A. Trevor-Battye.
Near the Mouth of Hinloopen Strait . . 283
?East Shore of Wijde Bay ... . . 284
Iceberg in Olga Strait . . . • 287
Grey Hook from Wijde Bay . ... . 293
The West Shore of Wijde Bay . . . 294
Glacier in the East Side of Wijde Bay . . 295
West Fjord, Wijde Bay . . . . 296
Mount Sir Thomas at the Head of West Fjord, Wijde Bay . 297
?West Shore of Wijde Bay . . . . 299
?The Three Crowns from Kings Bay 300
Magdalena Bay ... . . 302
Glacier at the Head of Kings Bay . 303
Bell Mountain from Low Sound . . . 309
?Valley of the Shallow River, from Low Sound 31 1
Mount Hedgehog or Hornsunds Tind ... . 329
?The Windward and the Fram at Tromso . . . 335
?Inland Ice-Sheet of New Friesland from Hinloopen Strait . 346
Farewell ! . . . .  349

CAMP SCENE.

SPITSBERGEN

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

IT was in Lord Dufferin's " Letters from High Latitudes "
that Spitsbergen 1 first emerged, for me, from the fogs and
darkness of Arctic mystery, as a land of mountains and glaciers,
of splintered peaks and icy bays, a place worth seeing and
even worth going to see. It is, as every one knows, the
portion of Arctic land which has been more frequently visited
than any other, for the simple reason that of all Arctic lands
it is the most accessible. The same Gulf Stream that renders
our own islands so temperate, so wholesome, and so damp,
1 Not Spitzbergen. The name is Dutch.

2 SPITSBERGEN chap, i
pushing its warm waters towards the Pole, melts in the ice-
covered sea a bay of open water. This bay extends in
summer to the 8oth and sometimes even to the 82nd parallel
of north latitude, and thus forms an exceptionally easy
avenue of approach towards the polar regions. Spitsbergen
skirts, through several degrees of latitude, the eastern side
of this open bay. The waters of the Gulf Stream impinge,
it is said, upon the long mountainous island, named (in King
James I.'s days) Prince Charles' Foreland, then pass round
its northern and southern ends and open ways to the actual
coast of the main island.
The name Spitsbergen properly applies only to this
main island, along whose western margin stand a series of
mountains composed of hard archaean rocks, often splin
tered into sheer and striking peaks, whereof the reader of
this volume, it is hoped, will derive some idea. Associated
with the main island are a number of others forming an
archipelago. Three are of considerable size. Xorth-East
Land, whose position is indicated by its name, is the most
remote. Edges Land (otherwise called Stans Foreland) and
Barendsz Land are separated from one another and from
Spitsbergen by very narrow channels, and indeed practically
form its south-east limb. The remaining islands are small
and numerous — the summits of submerged mountains or
table-lands resembling similar portions of the neighbouring
land. Some fifty-five miles east of Barendsz Land and twenty-
five miles south of North-East Land is a group of rather
large islands properly called Wiches Land, but now generally
known as King Carl's Land. These we had the rare good
fortune to approach very closely, a thing seldom possible.
Somewhere to the east of Xorth-East Land is likewise an
island or group of islands named Gillis Land, not known to
have been attained by man. Our attempt to gain sight of

chap, i INTRODUCTORY 3
Gillis Land was no more successful than other attempts
repeatedly made by our best equipped predecessors.
The history of the exploration of this interesting archi
pelago is a topic abounding in novelty, and so large and
important that I hope soon to devote a separate volume to
its sole consideration. The materials collected are already
so numerous, and the subject presents such extraordinary
ramifications and developments, that time is needed to pursue
the study with needful thoroughness. At present I merely
note in this place a few well-known facts, suited to throw
light on the following narrative, that the reader may under
stand the purpose and plan of our journey.
Spitsbergen was discovered by the Dutchmen Barendszoon
and Heemskerk on the 17th of June 1596. They were at
the time sailing northwards to find a way over the Pole from
Holland to China. In 1607 the same coast was revisited
and further explored by the English navigator Hudson, sail
ing with a purpose similar to that of Barendsz ; but Hudson
observed the prevalence of whales, walruses, and other
valuable animals, and fisheries were immediately established
by Englishmen in consequence. During the first quarter of
the seventeenth century the Spitsbergen waters became the
scene of much international rivalry, the English attempting
to annex the land and secure a monopoly of the fisheries,
whilst foreign " interlopers " of various nationalities suc
cessfully resisted their pretensions. Ultimately a working
arrangement was made between the parties concerned ; the
harbours and bays on the west and north coasts were divided
between the rival fishermen, the Dutch taking Fair Haven
and Dutch Bay (which was the best whale-fishing base), the
English Magdalena Bay, English Bay, and so forth.
The prosperity of the bay-fishery did not last long, for the
whales presently abandoned the bays and had to be sought
in the open sea ; but while it lasted Spitsbergen was a very

4 SPITSBERGEN chap, i
busy and populous place during the summer months. Build
ings were set up for habitation and blubber-boiling. Crowds
of people assembled at the various centres. As many as
18,000 are stated to have made Smeerenburg at one time the
centre of their operations. By the middle of the seventeenth
century the whale industry was already declining, and a
few years later Smeerenburg was a vanishing ruin.
Whalers, however, continued to visit Spitsbergen with
diminishing frequency till about the year 1830 or even later.
When they no longer came to seek whales or boil blubber,
they landed for water, or to secure supplies of fresh meat
from the quantity of easily obtained reindeer found in all the
fertile localities. The walrus and seal industries for some time
outlasted that of whaling, but now walruses have become
practically extinct in the accessible parts of Spitsbergen.
The only walruses we saw were on the edge of the ice
pack in Olga Strait.
About the middle of the eighteenth century many Russian
trappers from the Arkangel district made the archipelago
the scene of their activity. They used to spend the winter
there, building for themselves scattered huts, the ruins of
which are still discoverable. At first they also did very well,
but in time they exhausted the supply of bears and foxes
which formed the staple of their catch. About 1830 the last
of the Russians disappeared to return no more.
They in their turn were succeeded by Norwegians, who
now alone make these islands and waters the home of any
industry. Sloops and cutters from Hammerfest and Tromso
still visit Spitsbergen in small and perhaps decreasing number,
and there endeavour to secure a mixed cargo of whatever
they can take, eider-down, seals, white whales, sharks' livers,
a bear or two, perhaps a few walruses from North-East Land
but chiefly reindeer, the meat of which is sold in Norway at
a good price. Thus Dutchmen, Englishmen, Germans Bis-

chap, i INTRODUCTORY 5
cayans, Russians, and Norwegians have all at one time or
another sought Spitsbergen for industrial purposes, and by
their ruthless methods of extermination reduced it to its
present almost lifeless condition. Unfortunately it continues
to be a no-man's land, annexed by no state and governed
by no laws. Fisheries are unregulated ; there is no close
time for bird or beast, and so the animal depopulation
threatens to become complete. In the interests of science
and industry alike it is time Spitsbergen were annexed
by some power capable of regulating the country. The
Norwegians are the people upon whom the task should
fall. I have often been asked what the inhabitants of Spitsbergen
are like. There are no inhabitants, and never have been any,
if the few Russian trappers are excepted who spent some
consecutive years in the island. Its shores have proved
inhospitable to attempting colonists. Samoyedes could
doubtless thrive there, but no one has ever tried to intro
duce them.
The scientific exploration of Spitsbergen has been the
work of the present century. I do not refer to the employ
ment of the island as a base for polar exploration by Parry
and others, but to the investigation of its form, its geology,
its fauna and flora, its climate, and its glaciers. In 1827
Keilhau, a Norwegian, began the study of Spitsbergen geology,
but Professor Sven Loven, who visited it ten years later, is to
be regarded as the real originator of its systematic scientific
exploration. He was followed by Otto Torell and Norden-
skjold in 1858, between which year and 1896 Sweden sent
no less than nine scientific expeditions to Spitsbergen. With
these the name of Nordenskjold is most prominently asso
ciated. Meanwhile neither England nor Germany was idle,
as the several voyages of Lamont, Leigh Smith, and Von
Heuglin sufficiently attest.

6 SPITSBERGEN chap, i
These expeditions, with hardly an exception, confined their
attentions to the coasts and outlying islands. A ship was the
most convenient base, and few were the occasions when
explorers ventured more than half a day's march inland. I
find it recorded by Lamont1 that "some years before 1869"
a party of wrecked walrus-hunters travelled on foot overland
from the Norways to Cross Bay and wintered in Moller's Bay,
but nothing is known of their route or what they saw. In
1873, Nordenskjold, after wintering in Mossel Bav, worked
round the north coast of North-East Land ; landing on
the east coast, he crossed the great sheet of ice covering
the whole interior, and reached Hinloopen Strait by way of
Wahlenberg's Bay.
In 1890, Gustaf Nordenskjold and two companions
landed in Horn Sound and made a rapid traverse over the
inland ice on snow-shoes to Recherche Bay, whilst later in
the season they went overland from Advent Bay to Coles Bay.
Lastly, in 1892, Monsieur Charles Rabot, having only forty-
eight hours at his disposal, landed in Sassen Bay and made
a plucky attempt to find a way across to the east coast
by following the Sassendal. He reached the mouth of the
fourth south side-valley (our Turn-back Valley), and climbed
the hill beyond, to which he gave the name Pic Milne-
Edwards. It is thus evident that, up to the year i8qt>, the interior
of Spitsbergen was practically unknown. The island had
never been crossed, whilst such descriptions of its nature
as had been given, by persons who looked inland from
high points of view near the coast, were, as might have
been feared and as we afterward proved, altogether mis
leading. When I began to study the literature of Spits
bergen topography, nothing surprised me more than the
manifest indifference of travellers to everything concerning
1 " Yachting in the Arctic Seas," p. 23S.

chap, i INTRODUCTORY 7
the interior, an indifference perhaps characteristic of yachts
men and seagoing folk in general. A German visitor, for
instance, who climbed to a high point on Mount Lindstrom,
near Coles Bay, described the view inland to the south as
being over an "unabsehbare weisse Flache." Other writers
spoke of the hills in the same neighbourhood as being the
fronts of a great plateau. Only Mons. Rabot and Herr G.
Nordenskjold gave truthful and intelligible accounts of the
kind of country they saw. Various writers spoke of having
landed and advanced up valleys in pursuit of reindeer ; but
it seems never to have occurred to any one of them to note
the bearing of the valley's direction, still less the position
and number of side-valleys. When they added estimates of
the distance they advanced inland, to which it is possible
to apply tests, the estimated distances always turn out to
be ludicrously exaggerated.
Thus it came to pass that, after taking the best advice
we could obtain, we equipped ourselves with Nansen sledges,
and ponies to draw them. It was believed that we should
have to drag our things for a few miles over soft bogs, and
that then we could find smooth areas of snow over which
advance would be rapid and easy. It was the central portion
of the island that we were to explore, the northern and
southern portions being supposed to be wholly buried under
great ice-sheets, though, as we afterwards proved, there is
much mountainous country and many green valleys in the
neighbourhood of Wijde Bay. In the central portion of the
island many valleys were recorded as penetrating the hills.
By one or other of these we imagined it would be easy to
gain access to some snow-covered plateau continuous to the
east coast. Even Mons. Rabot thought we should have to
cross such a plateau east of Peak Milne-Edwards.
We had not been a week on the island of Spitsbergen
before we discovered the utter unsuitability of Nansen sledges

8 SPITSBERGEN chap, i
for the work we had to do. We ought to have brought
Samoyede sledges. With them we could have accomplished
easily what we accomplished only as the result of the most
toilsome exertions, and perhaps we might have done more in
our time. Such, however, are always the drawbacks under
which pioneers labour. Learning from and profiting by our
experience, a party may go in some future year and add
largely to our knowledge of this most interesting island.
The ponies, again, were a great anxiety to us. We decided
on taking them because of Mr. Jackson's favourable account
of their usefulness in Franz Josef's Land. But he had Ice
landic ponies. We were obliged to put up with the larger
and less hardy Norwegian beasts. The first that were sup
plied to us were unsuitable and had to be sold at a sacrifice
in Trondhjem. At Tromso we acquired better animals, which
served us well, but they gave much trouble, and the question
of how to feed them was always a difficultv. In the con
cluding chapter of this book I shall record the result of our
experience, as far as it is likely to be useful to future ex
plorers. Suffice it here to say that Nansen sledges, while
excellent for ice-work, are the worst for boggv and stony
places ; whilst ponies, which are most useful in bogs and
valleys, are practically valueless on crevassed, snowy, and icy
areas. Our combination of ponies with Nansen sledges was
therefore about the worst possible.
The reader must bear in mind that the main object of
our journey was to cross Spitsbergen and reveal the char
acter of its interior. Before seeing the island we thought the
method to pursue would be to strike across the island along
two or three lines. After three days spent in the country we
found that a different method must be chosen. The intricate
nature of its topography involved detailed study of a speci
men area, and this we accordingly undertook and carried
through.

chap, i INTRODUCTORY 9
The science and topography of the coast found no place
whatever in our plans. Zoologists, geologists, photographers,
and topographers — we were all pledged to one another to
subordinate every consideration to that of getting inland.
Our plans found approval at the hands of the Council of the
Royal Geographical Society, which voted us a handsome
subsidy, whilst the Royal Society placed a sum of money at
my disposal from the Government grant to enable me to
invite Dr. J. W. Gregory of the British Museum to join our
party, and the Trustees of that great national institution
gave him special leave of absence. How valuable was the
companionship of the author of the " Great Rift Valley of
Africa," how useful was his experience, how helpful his
energy, readers of that fascinating description of a most
plucky and fruitful journey will readily appreciate. Mr. A.
Trevor-Battye, author of " Ice-bound on Kolguev," was
likewise good enough to share our fortunes. He came as
zoologist, intending to pay special attention to the fauna of
the interior. Unluckily there was little for him to observe,
for the birds chiefly frequent the coasts. Whilst we were
busy inland he was able, by using the walrus-boat, to visit
the little-known North Fjord and Dickson's Bay, where his
work was compensation for the otherwise serious loss of
time entailed upon us by lack of a boat.
Mr. E. J. Garwood likewise joined the party, and thereby
contributed a most important addition to our strength. He
came as geologist, photographer, and expert mountaineer,
and in all these functions did admirable work. As a climber
he had won a first-rate reputation amongst the elite of the
present generation, having accomplished numerous expedi
tions of the first order of difficulty, and being accustomed
to dispense with professional assistance. He proved himself
a quick and accurate geological observer, and an excellent
traveller, full of energy, helpfulness, and kindness. To him

io SPITSBERGEN chap, i
belongs the credit for the two most important mountain-
climbs of the journey — those of Mount Starashchin and Horn
Sunds Tind — which were either accomplished by him alone
or under his leadership. My cousin, Mr. H. E. Conway,
came as the artist of the expedition. He worked industriously
and with no little skill in most uncomfortable surroundings
and ungenial weather. The present volume contains many
of his notes, whilst his sketches in water-colour and oils
have already been exhibited to the public. Lastly, we were
joined for a few days by Mr. J. T. Studley, who came in the
capacity of a sportsman. Finding nothing to attract him
in the appearance of the interior, he left us, to our no little
regret. Our first plan had been to secure a steamer for a shifting
base, and thus to attack the interior from various points in
succession. Had we been able to carry this out we should
have profited, but the expense of a steamer proved too heavy
for our means, and no generous yachtsman was forthcoming.
The boat must have been large enough to take the two ponies
on board, so that our choice was restricted. We thus had to
find some other means for reaching the island. In answer to
my advertisement a Norwegian firm communicated with me,
stating that the enterprising Vesteraalen Steamship Company
intended to build a visitors' hut in Spitsbergen that very
summer, and that it would be set up at Advent Bay, the point
I had already selected for our base. Accordingly I agreed to
share with them the steamer that was to take up the building
and the workmen who were to erect it, they undertaking
to carry our ponies, our open walrus-boat, and our two
Norwegian followers, and to fetch them back to Norway at
the close of the season. The agent whom I employed to
make this arrangement unfortunately bungled the matter and
committed us to return three weeks earlier than we had in
tended. The tourist-hut itself was of course useless to us.

chap, i INTRODUCTORY n
It went up with us in pieces, and was still in that disjunctive
condition when we began our journey into the interior. We
were then absent from the coast for thirty-six consecutive
days. During this time, whenever we did not sleep in the
open air, our only shelter was a tiny tent not tall enough to
stand up in, which barely kept out the rain and not at all the
cold. On our return I only remained in camp at Advent
Point long enough to overhaul the baggage and obtain pos
session of the 1 2-ton iron steamer in which the five of
us, cooped up with all our belongings in a cabin without
floor-space for all to stand up at one time, voyaged over a
thousand miles, often in the midst of heavy ice, and along
coasts, through straits, and up bays for the most part never
before visited except by properly-built Arctic vessels, and
not often even by them. Returning to Advent Point, some
of us spent one more night there in our tents, some two,
and then we quitted it finally.
What was accomplished during our journey of 1896 in
some respects surpassed, in others fell short, of our ex
pectations. We crossed overland from Advent Bay to Klok Bay,
from Klok Bay to Sassen Bay, and from Sassen to Agardh
Bay, on the east coast, and back to Advent Bay. We made
in all thirteen mountain ascents. We brought home a sketch
survey of an area of about 600 square miles in the heart of
the interesting middle belt of the country, besides a more
rapid outline survey of the hills on either side of Wijde Bay.
In addition, fortune enabled us to perform, round the coasts
of Spitsbergen, the most complete voyage of reconnaissance
ever accomplished in a single season. We almost circum
navigated the main island. We visited and entered to their
heads all the great fjords that penetrate it, except Van Keu-
len's Bay, Cross Bay, Liefde Bay, and Lomme Bay. We saw
the west, north, and south coasts of North-East Land from

12 SPITSBERGEN chap i
Cape Platen round to Cape Mohn. We landed at the Seven
Islands and closely approached Wiches Land (King Carl's
Land). We brought back about 600 photographs of all parts
of Spitsbergen. Such were our topographical results. The
scientific results were more important, and will be duly
chronicled hereafter. Our collections are in the National
Museums at South Kensington and Kew, where they fill
certain gaps — notably in the case of the geological collec
tion. We could have done more surveying had the weather
been less persistently foggy. You cannot survey what you
cannot see. With better sledges we might have covered
more ground. As it was, we accomplished all that, I believe,
would have been possible for any one to accomplish in the
time and with the means at our disposal. I look back
upon the season as one fruitfully and upon the whole
pleasantly spent. The fogs condoned their sins against the
plane-table with entrancing charms for the eye. The bogs
are not miserable to memory. Sometimes the sun shone
for days and nights together upon landscapes woven of
sunlight and silver. Of such tapestries how can one's
memory be dispossessed ? Even had we accomplished no
exploration nor added aught to scientific knowledge, the
journey would have been worth while for the mere pleasure
of it. That we may share this pleasure with a wider circle
is the modest reason for the publication of the following
narrative.

SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

CHAPTER II

LONDON TO THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

SELDOM for me did a London day open more peacefully
than on the summer morning of June 2, 1896. The air
was still. The sun shone softly through a light veil of mist,
as it was destined once or twice to shine upon us by the
shores of Ice Fjord. Thrushes sang in the mulberry tree
over my breakfast-table. The sounds of London were faint
and seemed remote. Every preparation was complete ; there
was nothing to be done.
An hour later the five members of our united party were
wrestling with forty-two pieces of baggage in the maze and
scrimmage of King's Cross Railway Station. There was
Gregory carrying a bundle of geological hammers and crow
bars, tied up with an old Snider, brown with East African
rust. There was Trevor-Battye in a suit of clothes acquired
in Moscow, when he arrived there in rags from Kolguev.
Garwood with an armful of newspapers, and my cousin with
an easel, poking out of a bundle of rugs, completed the party,

H SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
to which many kind friends had come to wish good-bye and
good luck. We missed only Mr. B. V. Darbishire, who was
to have been our cartographer. Sudden and severe illness
kept him back. A good German friend of his, with kind
providence, had sent two Westphalian hams for consumption
in Spitsbergen. " Where are my hams ? " he pathetically
asked, when I went to bid him farewell. " Safe in Trond-
hjem," was my scarcely regretful answer. Thus the savour
of him went with us.
Before the train had gone twenty miles, the first accident
occurred ; a coal smut flung itself into Trevor-Battye's eye.
" Shut the window, and blow your nose," was some one's
advice. Battye followed it. " But why shut the window ? "
he said ; " does that pull out the smut ? " It was a hot
journey, a kindly heat which gave us at all events one day's
sense of summer. By five P.M. we were on board the s.s. El
Dorado off Hull, and the screw began to turn. The air was
again soft and damp ; sea and sky to the eastward were green
and grey, only separated from one another by a narrow
broken line of shore and flat land, with here a row of trees
and there a cottage. Now and again a barge came floating
by, the only thing sharply defined in the midst of nebulous
surroundings. Distance soon swallowed up the town, with its
line of houses, its big church tower, its forest of masts, and
its roof of smoke. The sea could scarcely have been calmer.
The ship was not crowded. There was room for all, and
no one was ill. Next day the same conditions were main
tained, save that towards noon a little motion arose and
people grew somewhat silent, grave, and grey; but in the
long-delayed evening perfect calm reigned once more; and
when, about ten P.M. in the late twilight, we came into the
sweet smell of the land, and amongst lagoon-like bays and
low rock-islands, rounded by ancient ice, cheerfulness re
turned, and the light of expectancy was in every eye.

chap, n THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 15
Stavanger lay almost asleep at the head of its green inlet.
We landed there before midnight to see the exterior of its
cathedral, which has been remade rather than restored, and
to feel the joy of land beneath our feet. I for one was
but half awake, and dimly remember the new cut tracery of
the windows and carving of the pointed west door and
Romanesque north porch — all nineteenth century alike.
Our ship soon sailed again with a dormant company of
passengers, who reappeared next morning (June 4th) to
watch the passing of fine views, seen through a transparent
veil of rain. At nine A.M. the pale daylight showed low islands,
rounded and sometimes wooded, forming various combina
tions, and moving one behind another, the remoter seen
over the heads of those nearer at hand. Snow-capped hills
in the background looked large by contrast ; and every
where the smooth sea lay in the lap of the land, like clouds
in mountain valleys. Wet on rocks and grass enforced their
brilliancy of colour ; but damp made the air grey, and
almost as palpable as eider-down. The steamer pushed us
as gently through it as it did through the water.
By ten o'clock we were in the Bergen Customs House,
meeting with much civility from the officials, thanks no. doubt
to a good word from the Minister at the English Court. I
inadvertently jeopardised the smoothness of relations by
speaking of him as the Swedish Minister. "We have no
thing to do with Sweden," said the official testily, " and no
Swedish Minister has anything to do with us." To search
for the Raftsund, the steamer that was to carry us north, was
the first business. She was not alongside, as expected, nor
even in sight. A lengthy investigation revealed her in dry
dock, in the hands of shipwrights. For three days she would
not be ready to sail.
More curious persons would have used the interval for
an excursion ; but when strenuous work lies ahead, delay

16 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
produces a feeling of restless impatience that hinders the
invention of immediate employments. Besides, I was cum
bered with small anxieties about baggage and ponies, for,
contrary to my orders, it had been arranged that ponies
should be supplied to us here, instead of at Tromso. I
feared the beasts would be unsuitable, but could not see
them, for they had not arrived, and only came just in time
to be put on board. There are many worse places to idle
in than Bergen, which has its fair share of sights, first
among which is assuredly the Hanseatic Museum. It is
an old Hanse merchant's house, kept in the state in which
it was used, with its internal arrangements and furniture
complete — the unwholesome cupboards for master, fore
man, and apprentices to sleep in ; the secret staircases,
cunningly contrived for purposes of intrigue ; the light
weights for selling and the heavy weights for buying ; the old
ledger with its usurious entries ; and " the key of the dairy "
— an instrument of correction for refractory apprentices.
The owner of the place, a local antiquary, humorous and
original, congratulated us on the absence of ladies, and
proceeded to explain its history and mysteries with many
a giggled insinuation.
Next came the fish-market, with its tanks full of live
fish, whose names and points the vendors described in
language we could not understand, without ten words of
Norwegian at our combined command. One large leaden-
coloured fish, with a great oval head (a Gymnetrus, Norsk
Sildekongc), in a tank full of cod, was shown off for our
delectation. Its owner scooped it out, and, seizing it
firmly round the throat, gave it a lump of wood to bite.
The brute caught on like a bull-dog and rent the corner
off. A more wicked mouth I never saw out of a criminal's
head, and I believed immediately in the devil with a per
fectly medieval conviction. Old women came to cheapen

chap, ii THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 17
cod, and plucked them about with horny fingers, standing
by and laughing as knives were skilfully plunged into the
heads of their selections and each throat was cut, and
backbone broken near the tail.
One afternoon or evening some of us walked up the
northern hill to the lower edge of the soft cloud-blanket,
where a long traversing road, commanding wide views, led
to a pretty restaurant. The meal was served on a terrace,
whilst Norse airs were plaved bv a rudimentary band. The
evening seemed never to come, till we looked at a clock
and found that the hour was midnight.
Another evening I climbed to the top of the Floi hill,
and then wound away by a track leading to lonely uplands,
remote from the very memory of man. Everywhere was the
writing of the icy hand. All rocks were rounded. Thin
carpets of earth or bog filled little hollows or held on to
ledges. Patches of snow lingered in sheltered spots. From
the top was a notable view all around, the pale sun setting
amongst north-western clouds, and casting a glamour upon
a network of sounds, where sea and land mingled in intricate
interlocking, whilst promontories and islands became lower
and more suave of outline as they lost themselves in the
damp atmosphere of the mysterious sea.
A little village, immediately beneath, dipped its feet in
the fjord, some of its houses rising plumb on all sides from
the water. Ships of antique type, such as Vikings used,
lay becalmed upon the near expanse, whose bright surface
was broken by reticulating systems of ripples covering
a wide area with formal decoration. Inland were blue
hills, rising from a bluer and transparent sea, whose level
surface was the top of a layer of smoke that had drifted
from Bergen, and, by losing its grosser particles, had
become thus endued with the rich glories of a counterfeit
sky. Through the still air came no sound that the ear

18 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
could distinguish, save the cry of a remote cuckoo and its
fainter echo.
Another time I wandered round on the lower level to the
reservoir lake, a natural basin enlarged by a dam, artificial
but not ugly. A rock promontory juts into the water and
offers a natural pedestal for a recumbent man. I lay there
long in entire solitude with the black waters of the lake
around me, and sparsely wooded and lonely hill slopes reach
ing up to a low grey roof of cloud. Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! was
again nature's only song, with the faint lapping of water on
my rock for its accompaniment.
At last, on the dull morning of the 7th, the Raftsund cast
loose and steamed away through scenery that was at first
tame and uninteresting, low-lying islands and rocky promon
tories all rounded in the same manner by the ancient ice-
sheet. Then bolder outlines appeared, and seaward, abrupter
humps and even steep-sided domes of rock, with now and
then a snow patch. Inland came mountains of a certain
size but lacking dignity of form. Near the mouth of the
Nord Fjord the Raftsund followed a narrow channel imme
diately below Horneln, a bold and noble mountain that rises
by steep slopes from the sea, and juts a bare precipice of
nodding and splintered rock aloft to a jagged crest. The
gloomy evening light and the grey cloud roof overhead,
formed a suitable setting for this weird and solitary tower,
which then looked as lofty and massive as hills and precipices
can look, whatever may be their measured size. Clouds
ultimately gathered about and hid Horneln, but in the other
direction the sun shone forth and drew a clear fess of gold
across the grey azure field of cloudy sky. The boat heaved
beneath the ocean swell as she quitted the shelter of islands,
and I knew no more till the morrow's awakening in the
harbour of Christiansund.
Lovers of the sea and those to whom its motion is kind

chap, ii THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 19
can have no conception of the joy a true landsman feels
whenever he quits, if but for an hour, one of those hateful
prisons of the deep called ships. Words cannot describe
my normal loathing for the sea, save as a floor to look down
upon from a height of not less than iooo feet, when the
air endows it with an aspect of repose not its own. Then
indeed it becomes glorious, and the ships upon it resemble
fairy creatures, and the sun broods over it like a divine
presence. My altar to Neptune shall be raised upon a hill,
and thence will I offer him countless hecatombs. Such,
however, is the innate folly of man, that, when he sees a
beautiful view, he desires to be in the midst of it. " How
fair it looks ! " He thinks to gain by going where beauty
seems to be. But the beauty is not there, but here, whence
it is beheld. Not on that golden surface of the rippled sea,
not on that rose-tinted peak, but here. Not in the remem
bered past, not in the brightly promising future, but, if any
where, here and now. Tell a man this a thousand times ;
repeat it to yourself again and again. It is useless. Where
beauty is seen, there would we be — thither will we — beside
the great ones in history (who doubtless lived miserable
lives), anywhere that looks fair ; dort wo Du nicht bist,
dort ist das Gliick. But go there and you will find it
flown, the glamour gone further on, or worse, further
back. Christiansund is doubtless commonplace enough. The
point I thought I should always remember about it was
the sense of solidity of the earth underfoot. Any road
that led inland was good enough for us. We chose one
that struck uphill toward a moutonnised moor. It ended
in a picturesque wooden shed, a rope-walk that was tidied
up and put away for the summer. Behind came the hill
top, and a little rocky park with a tower on its summit, to
which we scrambled, going through bogs and up little

20 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
walls of rock. A girl was selling pink fizzing drinks and
biscuits. Gregory and I lunched on them, as we lay on the
roof of the tower, with fjords and islands spreading
around — blue hills, blue sky, and waters blue. It was a
brief repose. Soon we were on board again, and our boat
was struggling against a strong tide through a narrow gate.
Rain drove us below to Garwood's dark-room, where
experimental negatives were developed, and the usual faults
of commercially made apparatus began to declare them
selves. Trondhjem was reached about midnight. Here the
useless ponies were to be sold at as small a sacrifice as
might be. Here too the heavy baggage, come through
from London, was to be met and taken over. And here
our sixth, and, as it proved, very temporary member, was
to join us. Two hours finished the business, and left me
free to visit the famous cathedral, once so beautiful, but
now being supplanted by a modern copy, imitating the
work of many ages and styles with a uniform finish and
coldly accurate technique. Some remaining fragments of
the original sculpture in the soft local saponite make the
heart sad for what has been removed.
The old building, interesting and charming as the accre
tion of centuries, to Englishmen especiallv interesting for its
evidence of English influence in Norman and early English
times, has been treated as a model or mere design for a
new one. It is a dreadful pity. If a copy had to be made
one may admit that it is being well done. But who cares
for copies. The ruggedest wreck of an original is worth
them all put together. If a new building is required, brave
men should venture on a new design, the outgrowth of
themselves and their own day.
Gregory and I went forth by the road along the left bank
of the Nid, vaguely aiming at the Lervoss. A mile outside

chap, ii THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 21
the town a little stone-carrier's cart passed along, driven by
a small boy. It had two small wheels in front and two
larger behind, and on the axle of the larger was hinged
a sideless floor, resting on the front axle, but ready to
tip over backward at the smallest pressure behind. We
called after the boy to stop and we scrambled on, all three
of us crowding on a small sack and holding ourselves
tightly together, only just keeping our elbows clear of the
wheels. When the pony trotted we were jostled and jolted
finely, and felt the livers within us. " Where is Lervoss ? "
we at last thought it time to ask. " Miles behind," was the
answer. So we tipped the youngster and struck away at
right angles from the road, heading for the river, which was
somewhere in that direction. A field track led to a farm
house with a flying flag and a big swing in the garden. But
no food was to be got there by hungry wayfarers, so we
followed the track to another beflagged farm, where a crowd
of men were gathered in their Sunday best. One spoke good
American ; he was home on a holiday from Minnesota. He
made inquiry for us wThether we could get a meal, and the
hostess came forward and invited us in. " You seem very
gay hereabouts with all these flags flying," we said. " Is it
a wedding or a public holiday ? " " It is neither," they replied,
" but a funeral ; this is the way we show our friendship for
the dead." We talked with the American about the Pre
sidential election. He was all for M'Kinley. The hard
times in the United States dated for him from the Demo
cratic Free Trade platform. " I'm a sound money man," he
said. " I'm in favour of whatever I think likely to make
trade look up." The meal was soon served. Thirty male
guests sat down in one room ; we had a table in another.
The woman served the men and stood about waiting in our
room, where a mother nursed her baby, which laughed and
crowed at us in the intervals of its fare. The hostess came

22 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
often to press her viands upon us with kind hospitality. A
moderated gaiety pervaded the company.
Hunger being satisfied, we bade our friends adieu and
sallied forth through an undulating and fertile country.
Green fields decked the broken slopes. Approaching the
dip to the river's trough we saw over a wide area, diver
sified by old moraines broken down by alluvial action, and
terraces deposited at the opening of gorges. On the summit
of a wooded knoll a roar of water saluted our ears, and we
looked down upon the crest of the upper Voss, relieved
against a sunlit cloud of water-dust flung into the air from
the foot of the fall. Following a track down the water
side we enjoyed the cascade from many points of view.
Few pictures and no photographs give the least idea of
the charm of any waterfall, for its glory is not in its form,
but in its weight and volume, which the motion and roar of
the water reveal. The river, that here tumbles over a
cliff, was this day brimful, submerging its green banks ;
the brown smooth slope of the torrent at the top of the
fall, hid within its depths volumes of air, swirled in by the
first rush. These came to the surface like bursting shells
a few yards down, and thenceforward the whole was a
mass of cream-white foam, visibly heavy and of mighty
volume. The setting sun shone broadly on the face of the
fall, but left in darkness the curving reach of the wide
river below. A path led through a wood, with open grassy
places, in one of which was a family — parents, aunts,
and children— playing kiss-in-the-ring, and looking like so
many fauns, for which we blessed them. The second fall
came into view round a corner, and the path led to a
restaurant-platform. This fall is one undivided shoot of
water, less impressive, we thought, than the upper cataract,
perhaps because we saw that first. Waterfalls seldom gain
on acquaintance — it is the first impression, the contrast of

chap, n THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 23
then mass and hurry and might with the stillness from
which they emerge, that impresses the beholder. As the con
trast is forgotten the effect diminishes. Always arrange to
come suddenly on cataracts.
A road led from the restaurant. We elected to follow
the river-bank, to which a track invited us. It ended in a
swampy wood, through which we urged a laborious way,
sinking ankle-deep in mud, whilst wet branches hit us on
the face. Climbing a hill we came to drier places, then to
a real path, and then a road. Five miles' plodding brought
us to the ship about eleven o'clock in the so-called night.
Early one morning we steamed away to the neighbour
ing Orkedalsoren to pick up the materials for the Spitsbergen
inn. Here is one of the largest timber works of Norway,
where the hillside harvests of the woods are gathered and
wrought into every form. You can buy a ready-made house
as easily here as a wooden trunk. The building was all
ready, was in fact standing in the yard, its two storeys
in separate places. To pull it to pieces, load it on trucks,
and run them along the railway and the wooden pier to
the steamer, was not half-a-day's work. In a few hours we
sailed again.
The scenery continued dull — rounded rock-islands under
a roof of fog, which hid all bolder prominences. But late
in the evening it improved, and we had one lovely view when
we gathered on deck in our warmest wraps. The cold air
was utterly clear. A long mountain outline, finely complex,
divided a purple range of hills, that looked flat in their re
moteness like a wall, from a band of sky, yellow with
radiance poured level from the lowering sun, whose wake
upon the calm water of the sound was broken by the dark
silhouette of an anchored schooner. Little, however, in a
general way, cared we for weather or scenery, for there was
enough to do with our things and with one another. I read

24 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
Gregory's " Rift Valley " with immense delight, and the
additional advantage of being able to apply to him for a
running commentary, whereby the i's of the tale were
merrily dotted and its ^'s luminously crossed. I kept press
ing him for hints about travellers' equipment, derived from
his own actual experience, and jotted down in my note
book this advice : "Travellers should take with them a
sausage machine for tough meat, a bellows for bad fuel,
and a packet of seeds of quick-growing vegetables." Like
most men he only partially practised his preaching, for
there we were with neither sausage machine nor bellows.
We found him a mine of valuable and peculiar information,
most of which I have forgotten, though I carefully stowed
away the fact (whose historical accuracy I have not veri
fied) that Tristan d'Acunha is an island where one of the
unappropriated female majority carried off and married a
shipwrecked sailor before he had time to dry.
There is always work to be done to baggage by a fastidious
traveller. Studley overhauled the reindeer-skin sleeping-bags,
and improved upon his by sewing up both ends and open
ing a hole in the side. After three hours' stitching he made
experiment of the result, and flopped about on the deck like
a small walrus. " It'll be jolly hot," said some one. " But
you'll want it to be jolly hot," replied the voice within the
bag; "it'll be jolly cold, you bet." Meanwhile Garwood
was vigorously testing our photographic outfit with the
usual result ; such is the phenomenal ineptitude of photo
graphic manufacturers from a traveller's point of view. He
found that the cut films were in many cases too long to go
into the film-carriers and needed to have their ends reduced
a process of course impossible of performance within the
narrow limits of a changing-bag, when fingers are blue with
cold. He found that one of our changing-bags was so stupidly
contrived that it could not be seen into through the glass

chap, ii THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 25
made for that purpose. He found that a whole supply of

J. T. STUDLEY.

plates, advertised, bought, and specially labelled as thin, were

26 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
of merely normal thickness, and would not go into the double-
backs made for them. And finally he found that, in a new
film roll-holder, the cylinder would not turn, and only rent
in half the film it was intended to wind off.
A tremendous amount of sewing was accomplished by
industrious persons. Gregory and Trevor-Battye "fixed up
contraptions" for capturing minute marine organisms, and
almost every one had something to set to rights. Bachelors
came out strong with hus'ifs, which had all the appearance
of being the handiwork of gracious maidens. One particu
larly favoured individual confessed to having received no
less than seven as gifts. They were primed with needles,
buttons, and the like, but no one had put in hooks and eyes
(which we chanced to want), nor were there needles of tri
angular section, nor thimbles that would go on to thumbs.
I observed that, after an hour's sewing, the hand of even the
most skilful was bleeding from various wounds.
Trevor-Battye and Studley had deep consultation over a
book of flies, made by the latter with admirable skill. In
tricate was their talk and wide their reminiscence of fish
killed in many lands — those grand days in each man's past
that make up the sum of pleasant memory.
Gaily laughed the morning that followed ; gaily danced
the sunshine on the waters of successive sounds, with sky
clear, air fresh and stimulating. Graceful black-backed gulls
followed in our wake, and frequent eider-ducks and drakes
flew aside. From hour to hour we passed islands and pro
montories, and threaded a way through broad sounds or
narrow passages, sometimes emerging into the open sea,
but only to find it as still and kindly as a lake. If ocean
travelling were always like this, I could understand the
attraction of a sailor's life. Yet the air was not still, for
there was a merry breeze before which scudded double-
prowed boats, assuredly the gracefullest craft in the world.

chap, ii THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 27
" Blue ran the flash across " the hills. Over the ship's side
were crystal waters through whose shallower places the eye
could search the floor of purple rocks and white sand.
The mountains grew bolder, the scenery nobler further
north. The Seven White Sisters, first faintly seen ahead,
waxed in majesty as they approached. From hour to hour
more snow was in sight. Yet the view was never in the least
like a view in the Alps, even allowing for the presence of
the sea. Of characteristic grace are the domed islands, like
pierced Torghatten, which rise from the water in gentlest
sloping lines, then swiftly lift themselves aloft with ever
steepening curve to a broad summit. Some mighty masses,
like the Lion Island, front the sea with imposing precipices.
Distances became deceptive in the increasing clearness. We
mistook a gully filled with a lofty waterfall for a snow
couloir. The angular velocity of the falling water was so
small that the eye overlooked the motion. Thus we had
visible proof of the fact that the charm and strong impression
which cascades produce upon the mind is due, not to the
form (save in exceptional cases, like Tosa Falls or the Seven
Sisters in the Geiranger Fjord), but to the motion and per
ceived weight and volume of the falling water.
In the evening all came on deck to "dilate with the
right emotion " while crossing the Arctic Circle. Nature
has marked the position of this mystic line by an island
of notable form, named Hestmand, which rises boldly
from the sea and culminates in a jutting finger of rock.
On all hands the scenery was divine in the pellucid air.
Thirty miles away to the west, far out in the ocean, the
storm-rent Traenen Islands lay like a cluster of opals. The
mountains everywhere took bolder forms, with weathered
precipices, snow outlined ledges, and toothed aretes. Danc
ing light made patterns in the water, leaving polished high
ways and spaces patched about. The ship swung through

28 SPITSBERGEN chap, ii
narrow passages, and made constant changes of view and
ever fresh combinations of noble forms. Fjords opened
inland, but only to close again with fascinating rapidity.
The air was cold, the sun bright ; it was a joy to live. That
night the sun did not set ; it went below a bank of soft
grey mist, and for a while was not seen, but it remained
above the horizon then and thenceforward. We were north
of the midsummer night.

UNPACKING.

CHAPTER III

TO SPITSBERGEN

ON awakening next day (June 13) and looking out
through the port-hole, a superb sight met my gaze
— the long white front of the Lofoten Islands, stretching
away beyond the blue sea into pale distance, Vaaga-
kallen, a bold pyramidal peak, the centre and culmination
of the range. This glorious scene ushered in a day of
perfect delight. Hastening on deck in pyjamas I proceeded,
in the sheer excitement of joy, to ruin a series of photo
graph plates — exposing one twice, the next not at all, break
ing a third, taking the double-back off with a fourth before
closing the shutter — and so on, the result being that the
view was hidden without being photographed at all. By
this time the Raftsund had entered the charming harbour of

30 SPITSBERGEN chap, hi
Svolvaer, enclosed and backed by glorious snowy mountains.
" What a place," we all cried, " for a summer holiday ! "
and we registered vows to come thither again. But it is
really in March that one should visit Svolvaer, when the
great fishing takes place, and thousands, tens of thousands,
of the beautiful boats of the Nordland are gathered together
at one time for the fishery. One moment they will all be
busy with the catch ; the next a breeze may spring up or
the fish move away, and with a single impulse ten thousand
sails will be hoisted, all bright with colour, and the fleet
will move off, urged as by a single will.
The studio and pictures of the late talented young
Norwegian artist, Gunner Berg, attracted us ashore. The
streets of the village are creeks and its blocks islands. A
boatman rowed us to the house we wanted, and fetched
Gunner Berg's brother, who kindly gave admission to the
studio. It contains little but oil sketches and unfinished
pictures. The Vaagakallen peak in deep winter snow, with
groups of bright-coloured fishing-boats on the waters at its
foot, were the subject of many. A sketch of a skilobner
specially attracted me. The art of the painter was un
doubtedly great. He depicted his own folk in the atmos
phere in which they live. His work is full of air, light,
and motion. He painted less the shapes than the relations
of things. His sketches are not mere compilations from
scenes beheld, but skilful renderings of definite impressions
seized, comprehended, and made visible for others.
Shortly after noon we sailed again and looked up the
Ohel Sound, to its continuation, the Raftsund, with Mo
Sadlen at the end, biggest of peaks hereabouts. Fresh
water was taken in at picturesque Brettesnaes, which boasts
an English vice-consul (who came to call), and a manu
factory where cods' heads are converted into manure.
Her thirst quenched, the ship sailed on, past the glorious

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 31
Troldtind, from whose main backbone buttress ridges de
scend, each rising to a mighty tower before sinking to
its foot, feathery with young green birch, by the margin
of the deep blue fjord. These towers are truly Alpine,
almost Himalayan, in style though not in scale. The snow
slopes and couloirs upon them were striped with the tracks
of many falling stones. Valleys, white to the water's edge
with deep winter snow-beds, intervened between the but
tress ridges. Each opened in turn as we passed, till one
came deeper and between walls bolder and loftier than the
rest. Its floor lies far beneath the waters, which, flowing
in, form within the heart of the mountains the famous
Trold Fjord. Mr. With, manager of the Vesteraalen Com
pany, who has a keen eye for beauty and delights to share
the joy of it with his companions, caused the steamer to
enter this beautiful place for our delight. The spring snow,
lying low down to the water's edge, added, I fancy, to the
dignity of the scene, for the sun shone brightly upon it, so
that the end of the fjord, and the cirque of mountains
closing it in, looked like some giant palace of silver seen
through the narrow entrance, with its mighty door-posts of
dark precipitous rocks. The end of the fjord was a pool,
so calm in the bright day, with snow gullies and waterfalls
descending to it, each in its place mirrored below. The
ship turned slowly round, almost grazing the banks, and
steamed out again, leaving this sanctuary of Nature for a
while polluted with our smoke. How poor a return man
makes to Nature for her gifts !
Advancing up the Raftsund, cirques and precipices suc
ceeded one another, and couloirs and snow-slopes seamed
by falling stones. At the end of the sound came a large,
open area of water, whence many smaller sounds radiate.
Brilliant it was, with the water so still, the air so bright, and
the fine ring of mountains all around. We were to behold

32 SPITSBERGEN chap, iii
them presently from another standpoint, and in still greater
splendour. A twelve hours' halt was made at Stokmarknaes,
to take on coal and give Mr. With time to visit his home.
A hill-climber himself, he knew the best point of view, so
at seven in the evening, Gregory and I set off to follow his
advice, and climb the round summit of the fjeld behind the
town. Studley and Garwood went fishing and caught eleven
sizable cod, whilst Trevor-Battye and our artist sketched
the range of snowy mountains across the fjord.
Gregory went ahead like a steam-engine, whilst I did the
puffing and blowing behind. An hour's tramp carried us
over fields and bogs, through a wood of stunted birch, and
up rather steep snow-beds and a rounded ridge, to the
shoulder of our hill. There was a springy cushion of cloud
berry plants and a splendid view. On either hand were
hollow places, once filled with glaciers, which, in some
hurry of retreat, left their lateral, medial, and terminal
moraines in situ, and disappeared. A stone avalanche, falling
not far away, filled the quiet air with the echoes of its
rattling. Half-an-hour's further trudge carried us up the
remainder of the ridge and over the broad area of the
culminating snow-field, along which the sun drew out our
blue shadows to a hundred yards. I can recall no more
enjoyable hour of active life than the one we spent on the
upper part of this hill. On one side was a large snow-
cornice overhanging a precipice. Elsewhere the spotless
dome curved gradually away, and formed a smooth fore
ground of warm creamy white to what was assuredly one of
the finest panoramas I ever saw. Golden light flooded forth
from the low sun, and enveloped the north in a glory as of
the portals of heaven. A broad water-highway led to the
sea. Along its far side ran the straight range of beautiful
snow mountains of Lofoten, with splintered peaks rising
from rounded slopes, which dipped under a flat alluvial

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 33
foot. Where the peaks came nearest to us they were rich
in colour, and clear in outline and mass, but they stretched
away and yet away into fainter and tenderer delicacy of
light and tone, till in the remote distance they seemed more
impalpable than clouds floating in the rarest air. In other
directions great reaches of water led the eye to distances
so great and clear that it was as if we beheld all the area
of the north at one sweep, with countless mountains, pro
montories, and secret places, all apparently aloof from and
forgotten of man. The entire scene was absolutely superb,
perfectly harmonious in forms, in lights, and in opalescent
colour, pervaded by an unruffled serenity. I turned round
and round in silence and enchantment. The Arctic fever
seized me at that moment and thrilled through every fibre.
Leisurely we descended eastward by another route to a
second shoulder, where another halt was made, and I lay
a-dreaming on a large flat rock, whilst Gregory, more in
dustrious, sketched. Setting forward again towards the
steep face, we started down a snow-slope, hoping for a
glissade. But it was too hard and steep. Steps had to be
carefully trodden, and the direction constantly changed to
avoid places where ice came too near the surface. The
slope contracted to a couloir. We took to its grassy side,
but the ground beneath the thin vegetation was frozen hard
and was almost as slippery as naked ice. There was no axe
with us, so care was necessary. We let ourselves down by
occasional birch bushes, and thus, sometimes taking to the
couloir itself, gained the snow avalanche fan below and
glissaded to its foot. A beautiful little lake, framed in green,
and reflecting the low sunlight, here occupies the position of
the foot of the ancient ice-fall that descended this corrie.
Leaping fish made rings in the calm water. We scrambled
round, and floundered across bogs and streams to the edge
of the village, entering it through the main street of a quarter
consisting of empty wooden houses and booths, occupied

34 SPITSBERGEN chap, iii
for a few days every June by the 10,000 people who frequent
the great fair of Stokmarknaes. The ship was regained at
eleven p.m., and such was the enthusiasm of our praise that
Trevor-Battye and our artist were fired to emulation, and
promptly set forth to follow our steps. They climbed the
mountain to its top, but the colour was gone. The seem
ingly changeless vision we beheld had vanished like the
dream of a moment that it was.
A pall of grey cloud settled down overhead in the early
morning when we sailed again, painting the landscape in
mere black and white, save where sometimes a remote hill
shone pale yellow in a small island of transient sunlight.
All day long bleak scenery defiled past the ship, enlivened
now and again by a picturesque sail or a peak more in
dividual and abrupt in form than its countless fellows. Cold
breezes and showers drove us to seek employment below.
I read in Gregory's book and found the following description
of a happy African day : " In company with the Goanese
commandant, I spent a pleasant afternoon catching lizards
and scorpions, and digging up skulls." I feared Spitsbergen
might seem dull, if that was his idea of bliss. Being a
person of varied resources, however, he was actively em
ployed measuring the details of four hundred specimens of
a bone from the head of cod-fish. He said the pastime
was excellent. A momentary excitement was caused by our
touching bottom in the shallow channel of Risosund. The
face of a cliff, overlooking a narrow channel between Bjerko
and Held, is the resting-place of countless kittiwakes, who
cumbered themselves little about our close proximity, though
we blew the whistle a few yards from their nests, causing
our own insides to quake like metallic resonators. In the
late evening Tromso was approached through a veil of rain.
Under ordinary circumstances a day in Tromso would
not be a wildly exciting experience. For us, however, it
was busy enough. We had a horse-dealing transaction to

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN

35

begin with, resulting in the purchase of two ponies warranted
to eat dried fish-heads or any other garbage, and that proved
entirely satisfactory. Then there were our men to be inter
viewed — Pedersen the senior, an old sea-dog reputed to be

m^7M- \
$Z0! 7

¦ HPT Zr^^S**^

'-ZZ

well versed in Spitsbergenography, and a strong man of less
precisely defined qualifications, whose name was the Norwegian
equivalent of Williamson. There was also business to be
transacted with the vice-consul and at the post-office, further

36 SPITSBERGEN chap, hi
supplies of food to be bought, our whale-boat and its fittings
to be inspected, the ponies to be shod, and a thousand and
one more details to be finished out of hand. Incidentally
we dropped into various little shops and inspected their
stores of furs, horns, and the like oddments — for the most
part costly and unattractive. One store was devoted to
Lapp manufactures, described by a printed advertisement as
" very seeworthy." A poor little Lapp came in whilst we
were there, wearing leather clothes and turned-up shoes
like a Hittite. I felt as though I had tumbled into the
presence of a neolithic man, so broad seemed the tide of
centuries audibly murmuring between us.
The ship, as the day advanced, became a mere pande
monium. Two or three friends of Mr. With came by invi
tation to make with him the trip to Spitsbergen and back
— one of them was Mr. Ekroll of Lofoten, who had spent
a winter on Edge's Land a year and a half before. There
were also a French gentleman and a Stockholm journalist,
Herr Stadling, going to join Herr Andree. There were
several boats and our ponies to be taken on board. There
was a crow's-nest to be fitted up. All sorts of people came
to say good-bye — consuls, agents, dealers, and relatives or
acquaintances of passengers. The deck was crowded. Glasses
clinked. Every one was in the way of every one else, but
the sun shone brightly and all were gay. In the midst of
the shindy, Gregory digested geological papers from various
journals, cross-questioned any one that came handy about
Spitsbergen birds or the Norwegian vocabulary, and went
on piling up information generally. "You read always,"
said the French gentleman to him. "Yes," was the merry
reply; "you see I am young and have a lot to learn."
Garwood was also busy. He started from England with
some work on hand still requiring a preface. With this he
had been labouring in the intervals of sea-sickness, negative
developing, baggage overhauling, and the rest, at odd moments

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 37
during the voyage. The hour appointed for sailing came,
but the preface lingered. Furiously the author worked on
amongst teacups and the d6bris of food. At last the work
was done. A wild rush on shore, and the precious docu
ment was consigned to the post and all the printer's devils.
At last it became clear that the ship would soon be
ready to sail. Various Jeremiahs bade us good-bye, and ex
pressed hopes for our success, which at the same time they
prophesied would not be realised. They said the season
was a late one, that the ice would keep us out of Ice Fjord,
that we should not reach Advent Bay before August. Few
were the prophets of smooth things. They derided our
ponies. They knew of better men — as indeed they easily
might — than those we had engaged. They wished, one and
all, that we had come to them for advice, when we might
have started with some chance of success. Thus we quitted
Tromso in a chastened mood, which, about the supper
table, gave place to wildest merriment, for at last we felt
that the preliminary stage of our journey was ending and
that the fun would soon begin.
There remained, even yet, a final incident, when we un
expectedly stopped at Skaaro, close to the entrance into the
northern ocean, and visited the whaling station there, about
midnight. Three newly captured finner whales lay stranded
or moored by the shore, and were in process of being flensed.
One was a great fellow ; the stink that arose from all was
overwhelmingly horrible ! The wife of the manager of the
company invited us to her charming house, where success
was pledged to our enterprise in champagne. A wood fire
blazed on a picturesque hearth ; the walls were hung with
bearskins, bold autographs of Kaiser Wilhelm and other
distinguished visitors, and various trophies. The windows
commanded views over a landlocked sound to a row of
the snowy mountains we had just come by. The cosiness
and comfort of this hospitable home were most enjoyable.

38

SPITSBERGEN

chap, iii

A few minutes later we were again upon the ship. A brief
passage carried us into the open sea, and our course was
finally set for Spitsbergen.
Of what happened during the next twenty-four hours I
have but the vaguest idea. The sea was what its admirers
might call calm. There were no white caps on it, but a long
rolling swell came from the south-west, enough to keep one

'. V. ,\.ZtfRTT— ttj-

A WHALING ESTABLISHMENT.

miserable, even without the marrow-freezing wind. So I
remained in my bunk and read, till the boredom of inactivity
became intolerable. Meanwhile exterior surroundings were,
I believe, interesting enough. Whales spouted, and two
finners came within a harpoon-throw of the ship's side. The
proper birds appeared in due succession. Little auks scurried
about in flocks, or flapped along the surface of the water,
and then dived beneath it in a hurry ; fulmar petrels flew
gracefully around and scudded along incredibly close to the

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 39
water with apparently motionless wings. There were Mandt's
guillemots, Briinnich's guillemots, black guillemots, kittiwakes,
Arctic terns, Arctic puffins, and a pair of Pomatorrhine
skuas, all duly and immediately recognised by Trevor-Battye
with a readiness that seemed magical to me, who distin
guish with difficulty between a thrush and a blackbird.
About two A.M. on the 17th, Bear Island was sighted to the
eastward, but all we saw of it was the lower part of its
northern extremity between a floor of grey sea and a low
roof of grey cloud. We held steadily on our way, hour after
hour, through the cold miserable air, and over the more
miserable heaving sea. Shortly after noon the first fragments
of ice were passed, while along the eastern horizon hung
a curtain of the coldest white conceivable, like sunlight on
a cloud seen through a veil of mist. It was an Ice Blink,
sign of the presence of an ice-pack in that direction. An
hour later we were in the middle of drift ice, and had to
slow down and wind about to avoid the pieces. These were
of all shapes and sizes, distributed with average distance
between them of perhaps a hundred yards or less. On the
horizon they appeared like breakers. Nearer at hand they
took the queerest shapes, like swans, rearing horses, people
seated at table, camels, lions, buildings, what-you-please.
Often there was a covering of old white snow on the top ;
then a thickness cut through or undermined by the wash of
the waves, or hollowed out into caves. This part was always
divinely blue, with a blueness more delicate and pure than
that of an Alpine glacier's crevasse. The mass below the
water had a flat upper surface, and was much broader and
more solid than the part above. It showed a light bluish
green tint through the water. The waves breaking over this
greenish base -swished and flopped under the overhanging
masses, and no doubt were rapidly destroying them. Some
larger fragments of dirty land-ice intruded themselves amongst
these delicate creations of the bays or the open sea.

40 SPITSBERGEN chap, iii
A ship intended to face ice is always built of wood, and,
if a steamer, furnished with a two-bladed propeller. Our
vessel was of iron, and her propeller had more blades than
two. It was therefore absolutely essential to avoid coming
in contact with the drift ice. We wound about amongst the
masses, but the further we advanced the more numerous
they became, so that we were at last compelled to steam
south-west for an open place visible from the crow's-nest.
Before reaching it a band of larger ice-masses had to be
passed, floes a quarter of an acre in area or more, which had
been crushed up, one upon another, and piled into strangely
contorted forms. On one of these floes lay half-a-dozen
young saddle-back seals, which let us come so near that we
were about to launch a boat and attempt to harpoon them,
but they awoke, slipped off into the water, and were gone.
Plenty more seals appeared during the day. They often
held themselves up high out of the water, hideously humanly,
and gazed at the ship, before diving and hurrying away.
However interesting our surroundings may have been,
and they were sometimes even exciting, what all were pre
eminently conscious of was the cold. Passing strange were
the costumes adopted. One and another would vanish below
and return with some additional wrap. Studley became quite
stylish in corduroy breeches of the most fashionable hunting
cut, wherewith his long rubber boots, stuffed out with hay,
by no means harmonised. Trevor-Battye produced Samo-
yede pimmies. Coats of leather, furs, and every kind of thick-
outer covering appeared ; but the greatest variety was in caps,
which ranged from a thick Kashmiri turban through every grade
of fur head-dress to the ordinary sou'-wester. In the baggage
were four pairs of enormous fur-lined boots brought by mis
take, and which we intended to return unused. They were all
appropriated early in the day with thankfulness, and we slid
and waddled about in them, awkward but comfortable.
When attention was called to the fact that this 17th of June

DRIFT ICE OFF SPITSBERGEN.

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 41
1896 was the three-hundredth anniversary of the discovery
of Spitsbergen by Barendsz, the ship was gaily dressed with
bunting. Fog threatened to prevent us from completing the
celebration by beholding the island itself, but about eight P.M.
the fog lifted, and we saw, some twelve miles or more away
to the ESE., the bases of the hills about Horn Sound and
part of Mount Hedgehog, the whole deeply clothed in snow,
creamy white in the sunshine, and faint blue in the shadows,
but too distant to be picturesque or at all striking. Ice
thickly fringed the coast, and Horn Sound was seen from
the crow's-nest to be blocked with it. Slowly we crept
along up the coast through the scattered drift ice, sometimes
forced to move farther out to sea, but always trying to edge
back towards land as soon as possible.
By midnight the sea was absolutely and divinely calm,
with the gentlest heave coming across it, a bright grey flat,
silver grey under a lighter grey sky. Scattered about in it
were the loveliest masses of ice, blue, indescribably blue
below, with caverns of darker blue and white surfaces above
— things fairy-like, bathed in the soft grey air, melting away
in the distance, yet strangely defined and clear, with a soft
definition and a clearness as of gossamer fabrics. Land
ward was just a stripe of faint yellow, where the snowy
foot of hills appeared, illumined by the pale midnight sun.
Next morning when we came on deck there was a great
transformation, for the day was absolutely clear, and we were
anchored off Cape Starashchin at the mouth of Ice Fjord.
The sight that met our eyes was a vision of beauty so
radiant and glorious as to seem past the possible perfection
of this world. Turquoise blue was the sea, dotted about
with white ice-masses, each a thing of beauty. Snowy hills
framed the water, white hills with sharp rock aretes and
boldly-bedded slopes. Southward the Russian Valley pene
trated the land, divided by the blade-like mass of Mount
Starashchin from the sea, and by a carboniferous ridge

42 SPITSBERGEN chap, hi
on the other side from Green Harbour. North was the
fine mass of Dead Man's Mount, with the fainter hills and
headlands of the Foreland further out. Looking up the
fjord were the coasts and bays we were soon to know so
well ; the glacier fronts near Cape Boheman, the white hills
on the south beyond Green Harbour, remains of a broken-
down plateau now cut up by deep valleys, all white with
winter snow. The place where we were anchored was close
to the southern shore, near a solitary rock named the Fortress,
just off the mouth of the Russian Valley. Half a century ago
this was the site of a large settlement of Russian trappers.
One of them, by name Starashchin, spent, it is said, no less
than thirty-seven winters here. Some say that he died in
Russia, others point out his grave near the Fortress. The
man is often mentioned by old visitors to Ice Fjord, but
little seems to be recorded about him except the length of
his stay. He used to return to Russia for the summer.
At an early hour we set forth to land. Rowing against
the wind infused warmth into us. We wound about among
stranded masses of ice, hollowed below by the sea, but
with smooth beds of snow above. Sooner or later the
stalk of ice supporting the snow table becomes slender and
snaps, or the balance of the whole mass is disturbed and
it tips over on its side so that the table slopes up out of
the water. This is the fundamental type from which are
developed all those queer shapes, as of bird and beast, with
which drift ice diversifies the sea. Birds flew close to us or
dived into the water by our side— king eiders and common
eiders, little auks, puffins, and guillemots. Bravest of all was
the fulmar petrel, which hovered close over our heads, then
swung away with easy grace, only to circle round again and
return to continue observations on the intruders.
Snow lay deep by the water's edge, and overhung
the shore with a splendid white cornice. Landing at a
suitable gap, we climbed on to the flat— a raised beach of

FLOATING ICE.

THE NORTH COAST OF ICE FJORD, AT THE ENTRANCE.

chap, in TO SPITSBERGEN 43
water-rolled pebbles covered in places with springy vegeta
tion, and already flushed with pink saxifrages (Oppositifolia)
lovely to behold. Gregory went to work, smashing things
with his hammer and filling his vasculum with plants. We
tramped across the flat, for the most part over snow, and
climbed a slope eastward to the lowest crest of the long
ridge that forms the east bank of the Russian valley.
From the top a view over the whole of Ice Fjord burst
upon our delighted gaze. Green Harbour's mouth was
close at hand with only broken ice before it, but beyond
came the pack blocking Advent Bay and all the remoter
fjords. Sassen Bay, Klaas Billen Bay, Dickson's Sound,
Safe Haven — we could see them all, and brilliant mountains
behind them, here peaked and beridged, there rising as by
steps to broad flat levels, but all alike — peaks and valleys —
bright with a deep covering of purest snow. This splendid
ring of white enframed the great fjord, which too was for
the most part white, but blue near at hand, dotted over
with ice-blocks, and so calm that the hills were reflected
in it, and lay amongst the floes.
From this point of view the ice-master gained the in
formation he needed about the state of the ice and was
able to make his plans. He unfortunately, with a sailor's
strange secretiveness, kept them to himself, so that we
were unable to use the interval to best advantage. While
Gregory and I were on the carboniferous ridge, Trevor-
Battye searched the level shore and swamps within for
birds, and Ted sketched the snow-cornice overhanging the
sea. A gay breeze carried us back to the ship with birds
flying round and little waves following and laughing as
they fell back and gave up the race. Garwood did not
come on shore with the first boat but followed a little later.
What he was doing no one knew, nor where he was, but he
shall tell the story of his adventures in his own words.

44

SPITSBERGEN chap, iii

THE ASCENT OF MOUNT STARASHCHIN
By E. J. GARWOOD
Having landed near Cape Starashchin, after Conway and
Gregory had gone away with the skipper to inspect the
condition of the ice, I struck inland across the low swampy
ground, which here extends for several miles between the
hills and the sea, and directed my steps to the foot of a
prominent mountain ridge running southward and nearly
parallel to the seaboard. My original intention was to col
lect specimens of the rock, but habit is strong, and I had
not gone far before the temptation to attempt the ascent
of the peak overcame me. After examining the ridge for
a practicable route, I changed my course, so as to arrive at
a point more directly under the summit of the mountain,
and so avoid traversing the whole length of the arete. This
involved crossing the boggiest portion of the foreshore,
and my first attempt at Arctic exploration was decidedly
damping. The low ground, which must be crossed, forms a
portion of the recently-raised sea floor, which makes so
conspicuous a fringe to all the more sheltered inlets on

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 45
both sides of the island. Being composed of glacial
debris deposited as a kind of submarine boulder clay, its
consistency is loose and treacherous. Though for the most
part still covered with snow this was melting so rapidly,
now that the long Arctic day had set in, that the whole
surface had been converted into a species of snow bog.
During the six weeks which followed we had ample oppor
tunity of studying the peculiar characteristics of these bogs,
half snow, half water, and wholly abominable, but this walk,
being my first experience of them, made perhaps the greatest
impression upon me.
Here and there low domes of mud, from which the
snow had melted, afforded a firmer resting-place for the
foot. The formation of these protuberances by the swell
ing of the saturated ground under the expanding action
of frost, and the consequent formation of shrinkage cracks,
approximately hexagonal in shape, during the dry season,
is a very characteristic feature of these lowland flats. Pro
gress over this kind of ground was nearly as irritating as
the obstacle race over loose moraine by candle-light, so
frequently involved by an early start in the Alps. As I
plunged up to the knees in the liquid snow bogs, splashed
to the eyes, I caught myself quoting remarks which I re
member hearing dropped by the man furthest removed from
the candle on one of the above occasions. After nearly
an hour and a half's tramping I gained the scree slopes of
the mountain, and commenced a diagonal ascent to the foot
of a projecting rib. This west side of the mountain is
decidedly steep, and the nearly vertical buttresses are inter
sected by steep gullies, at that season still filled with snow.
Never did I come across a mountain in such a terrible
state of repair ; step after step gave way, and I do not
think that during the whole of the ascent to the arete, a
single hand or foot hold could be called really safe. Having

46 SPITSBERGEN chap, iii
started from the ship without any intention of climbing, I
was without an ice-axe, and, moreover, hampered by a gun,
a camera, and a geological hammer, but I abandoned the
former soon after commencing the ascent. After mounting
a short distance I was on the point of crossing the couloir
to my right in hopes of finding firmer rock on the
buttress beyond, when a portion of the cornice above broke
off, and, gathering material from the upper part of the
gully into which it fell, rushed past me down the narrow
sinuous couloir, hissing and writhing like a serpent.
After this little exhibition of temper, I decided to stick
to my rotten buttress, and, after removing a large portion
of the mountain in my struggles, reached a small cornice
which projected from the west side of the ridge. Cutting
through this with the geological hammer, I gained the arete.
The structure of the mountain now became clear, and I
was no longer at a loss to account for its disintegrated
condition. I was standing on the upturned edge of one of
the harder grit bands, here interbedded with slates consti
tuting a part of the Hecla Hook formation — a rock series
apparently older than any of the fossiliferous strata on the
island. In no place in the world can the disintegrating
effects of frost be so admirably studied as in these latitudes :
the copious discharge of water from the rapidly melting
snow, during the continuous Arctic day, permeates all the
cracks and saturates the rocks with water, which on the
first frosty night is expanded into solid ice. In the case of
the ridge of Starashchin, the strata having been tilted into
a vertical position, access for the water is easily obtained
along the truncated edges of the numerous bedding planes,
causing slice after slice of the face to be wedged off, and
shattered into incoherent piles of rock.
But my attention was soon diverted from the rocks at
my feet to the magnificent panorama which the ridge

RUSSIAN VALLEY AND MOUNT STARASHCHIN.

chap. iii. TO SPITSBERGEN 47
commanded. I cannot hope to convey in words the
beauty and grandeur of that view ; the poet to the expe
dition might perhaps have done justice to it, but unfortu
nately I had left him shooting sandpiper on the marshes
below. It was so similar and yet so different from the views
to be seen on a fine day from any of the famous summits
in the Alps.
It was my first peep into the scenery of Arctic lands.
When coasting northwards on the previous day, thick banks
of fog had hung in curtain-like folds along the land, in
creasing our curiosity in the country that lay behind. Now
these had all rolled away, revealing a fairyland of ice and
snow. The sun shone with a tempered glow in a wonderful
sky of turquoise blue, a sky whose colour was different from
anything I had ever seen above the snow-fields of the Alps,
where, on cloudless days, owing to the absence of sus
pended particles, the colour of the sky often approaches
black. My immediate interest lay in the direction of the
interior, and I eagerly scanned the scene of our future
operations. Inland to the east and south the eye wandered over seem
ingly endless ranges. of undulating snow : a few rocky peaks
were beginning to push their dark points through the thick
mantle of snow, accumulated during the last long Arctic
night, like the first young shoots of the snowdrop on the
approach of spring. Snow filled the valleys to the east in
the direction of Coles Bay, damming back the drainage and
forming lakes, and stretching shorewards till it merged into
the frozen margin of the fjord. In the bay at my feet
gigantic icebergs of a wondrous blue shimmered in the
frosty light as they glided seawards on the ebbing tide. Be
yond lay the ice-pack, and at the back of beyond lay that
mysterious region whose secret so many had tried in vain
to solve, and which, in spite of many an heroic effort, it still

48 SPITSBERGEN chap, iii
clasps tightly in its icy grasp. I, thought of Nansen, that
gallant Norseman, who, sailing northwards now three years
ago, had drifted into the silence of that frozen waste ; and,
as I gazed, there crept over me a deep mysterious awe, a
shadow from the threshold of the great unknown. It was
a scene which I shall never forget.
But a long distance still separated me from the summit,
and at any moment the captain might return and sound
the signal for my recall, so stepping carefully along the
broken arete, sometimes of ice, sometimes snow, I hurried
as fast as possible to the foot of the first of the twin
summits. No difficulty occurred which would have caused trouble
to a properly-constituted party, but climbing alone on a
corniced ridge, without rope or ice-axe, was rather ticklish
work ; the situation, however, was not devoid of humour,
and I laughed aloud, whilst cutting a staircase with my
hammer down a nasty dip in the arete, about as wide as
my boot, when I thought of the expression which the face
of my old tutor, Joseph Imboden, would have worn if he
could suddenly have come across me at that moment.
After many ups and downs, however, I arrived near the
summit of the north peak ; skirting below this, I kicked a
passage across the snow face and rejoined the arete to the
south, and was pounding along this, to what I considered
must be the highest point of the ridge, when I thought I
heard a faint whistle. Glancing towards the entrance of the
bay, I could see a tiny puff of steam floating away from the
funnel of the little toy steamer, and as I watched, there came
a second little puff, followed by a faint whistle ; this was
the signal agreed upon for my recall. Glancing hurriedly
round me, I exposed one film and then turned and fled.
For a time I kept along my previous track, but on reach
ing the foot of a long rise in the arete, I suddenly discovered

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 49
that the steamer had left her anchorage and was steaming
away up the fjord. Abandoning the arete, I turned straight
down the west face of the mountain, thinking it better to risk
a precipitous but rapid descent than run the chance of a
lingering death from starvation.
My troubles soon began : the couloir down which I
started became rapidly steeper ; the snow into which I
plunged up to my knees gave no support, and showed an
evident intention of breaking away ; and a little farther down,
the sudden acceleration of a leg which 1 had tentatively
advanced, showed the presence that I had dreaded of under
lying ice. There was no choice but to continue the descent
by the rotten rock ridge on my right. This involved great
delay, armfuls of debris had to be pushed away, and a
little platform constructed for each step : even then there
was no feeling of security.
Suddenly the buttress I was descending stopped short at
the junction of two couloirs. Like those farther to the
north, which I had avoided in the morning, they were swept
by avalanches from the arete above, and presented a steep
surface of treacherous ice. Retreat was impossible, so,
casting an apprehensive glance up the wicked-looking gully
above me, I began rapidly cutting steps with my hammer
across the narrowest part of the couloir. I fear these steps
would not have passed muster by the editor of the Bad
minton book on Mountaineering, where we read that "the
greatest number" of strokes "is required in cutting steps
for a traverse of a very steep, ice-filled gully," and further,
that " a good guide has been known to take seventy strokes
to fashion a step " ; but I must own that my dominating
impulse was to reach the far side of the couloir as quickly
as possible. Once, when nearly across, a stone tobogganed
gracefully past me, serving, if possible, to hasten my move
ments. But at last I was across, and after this the slope

5°

SPITSBERGEN

CHAP. Ill

lessened, and in another twenty minutes I had reached the
scree slopes below. For the first time since leaving the arete
I had leisure to look for the steamer : she was nowhere
to be seen !
As I replaced my glasses after a fruitless examination of

THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT STARASHCHIN.

the bay, I discovered that I had dropped the roll-holder
attached to my camera. Searching carefully with my
glasses along my line of route, I finally espied the truant
box neatly balanced on the last point of the buttress I had
quitted, and, of course, the wrong side of the couloir. As
the steamer had gone, there was no further cause for hurry,
but I hesitated before deciding to risk two more interviews

chap, iii TO SPITSBERGEN 5r
with that abominable gully. However, the disablement of
one of my cameras at the very start was too serious a loss
to be accepted without a struggle, so, toiling up the rotten
buttress once more, I managed to regain possession of the
box. In returning, however, I dropped my fur cap while
stooping to improve a step. It disappeared down the
couloir, and there it lies, for a careful search at the bottom
failed to reveal a trace of it.
As I jumped .and waded along the five miles of swamp
to the coast, I recollected that I had eaten nothing since
breakfast on the ship, and it was already seven o'clock. The
reflection was not a cheering one. The steamer had gone,
and Battye and the artist had, I knew, returned long since
to the ship. I glanced about for a sleeping-place and for
something to shoot, and thought of the stories of marooned
mariners. Only the night before Battye had recited to us a
ballad of his own composition anent a marooned whaler,
whose brain gave way under the strain of Arctic solitude.
Some of the verses recurred to me, and seemed to describe
very closely my own predicament.
" And who shall win when the fates begin to rustle their pinions black ?
For the bergs that ride with wind and tide had driven the vessel back,
So that she lay ten miles away, low in a red sun's track.
This was the thing which, wearying in hunger, and alone,
Allan learned as he returned to drop on a barren stone,
Sick with the sense of his impotence, and with doubt of the drear un
known."
Nor was the sequel which describes the finding of
the marooned man any more cheering. It ran something
like this : —
" And out of the ground a figure wound through the roof of a lair of snow,
Weird as the theme of a graveyard dream, gaunt as a gallows crow,
And rocked itself on an icy shelf, moaningly and slow.

52 SPITSBERGEN chap, iii
It sucked at the heel of a dead grey seal, like some wild creature caged,
And peered at the prize with puckered eyes, critical and aged,
Glancing askew at the presence new, as jealously enraged."
With these rhymes running in my head I reached our
landing-place on the coast, and there, to my great relief,
found our boat, and the .artist still sketching. It appears
the boat had been sent to wait for me, and the artist had
taken the opportunity of returning to finish his picture. My
first inquiry was for food, but there was none to be had,
the party having returned to the ship to dine ; but I espied
a half-empty mug of beer, which had been standing in the
sun since the morning ; this I finished without ceremony
and with great satisfaction. After an hour's pull, of which
I shirked most of my share, we reached the ship, and I did
ample justice to a cold supper, having been nearly twelve
hours without food.

CHAPTER IV
ICE FJORD
WHILE Garwood was climbing Mount Starashchin,
the Raftsund was trying to find a way through the
ice towards Advent Bay. Fortunately for him she failed,
and had to return. I was eager to land and explore the
Russian Valley, but Gregory quite rightly protested. It was
impossible to know when the ice might open, and to begin
our explorations by being sundered into two parties forty
miles away from one another, would doubtless have been
unwise. So we spent the evening together on board, and
Garwood presently returned and made our number complete.
As the sun went to the north a mellower beauty spread
over the view, whilst a thin blanket of checkered clouds
came up from the west. All day long, masses of ice had
been drifting out of the fjord in endless procession, till it
seemed as though there must come an exhaustion of the
supply ; but no diminution was visible, and no lead opened
broad enough for the steamer to venture in. At any
moment the slow-moving ice might change its direction
and begin packing up at any point, so that without very
great risk the Raftsund could not advance.
Early next morning (June 19) we were under way, at
first through open water, then among larger floes. Off
Coles Bay it was impossible to proceed ; we had to return
crestfallen a second time to the sheltered anchorage ; whilst
to make matters worse, the sky clouded over and the day
became wretched. All the glory went from the view, and

54

SPITSBERGEN

CHAP. IV

the distances were swallowed up in fog. How long we
might be kept it was impossible to tell. We risked being
left behind, and landed for a tramp over bogs and water-
patches, covered with snow that let us through, knee-deep
in freezing slush. Search for birds, flowers, and stones
enlivened the otherwise dreary way to the mouth of the

ENTERING ICE FJORD, LOOKING NORTH.

Russian Valley. An hour's walk led to the crest of a rounded
ridge, the northward prolongation of Mount Starashchin,
whence we looked down on a lake, frozen over and snow-
covered, whose mottled surface looked like a bed of morn
ing mist filling a valley.
In the evening our men returned to the ship with some
birds and the skin and blubber of a young whale. Later, a

chap, iv ICE FJORD 55
small boat came alongside, containing a Norwegian, Klaus
Thue of Tromso, and a Lapp, the two survivors out of a
party of four that were caught by the ice in the preceding
October, and compelled to stop in Spitsbergen for the
winter. They had a horrible tale to tell of privation, sick
ness, and death. Thue himself was just recovering from
scurvy, and looked very ill and weak. He related his story
with the assistance of a detailed journal, which, I believe,
was afterwards published in the Aftenposten of Christiania.
It was briefly as follows : —
" Last year we came up in a cutter from Tromso to shoot
reindeer. There were four of us, the skipper Andreas Holm,
Anton Neilsen, the Lapp, and I. We filled up with about
seventy reindeer, and on the 14th of October we sailed from
Advent Bay for Bell Sound, whence after a few more days'
hunting we meant to sail home. On the 16th we were off
the mouth of Bell Sound, and were surprised to find it
blocked with ice so early in the winter. Moreover there
was the ice-pack outside to the south and west, so that it
was only off the mouth of Ice Fjord that there was open
water. Then we knew that we were shut in, and must spend
the winter in Spitsbergen. We sailed back to Ice Fjord, and
on the 19th cast anchor in Advent Bay, just where the
cutter now lies frozen up. The ice has since crushed her,
and she is a wreck. She was an old boat and not strong.
"We lived on board till November 11. It was then
getting very dark. On the 12th we shot a reindeer. That
was the last day there was light enough for shooting. As
soon as we reached Advent Bay we set about making prepara
tions for the winter. We dug an oblong hole, about four
feet deep, in a dry place a little above the hut. We could
not dig deeper, the ground was so hard. We made a roof
out of spars and sails. We used the door and other materials
from the cutter's cabin, and brought the little stove and other

56 SPITSBERGEN chap, iv
furniture from her and arranged them in the hut. At first
we burned the coal from the boat which we had got in Green
Harbour. That gave out on the 5th of January, and then we
fetched more from the hill near the hut, but do what we
might we could not keep warm. The cold was dreadful.
With all our furs we were never once warm during the
whole winter. The ground beneath our feet used to bang
like a cannon, cracking with the frost. Later on we made our
hut better and stronger, but at this time it was a very poor
shelter. Of course there were quantities of snow on the hills
and all about, but there was never any snow on the flat of
Advent Point — it was always blown away from there.
" Because of the cold we thought it would be better if we
could move across to Nordenskjold's House at Cape Thordsen,
on the far side of Ice Fjord; so on the nth of January,
when the fjord was frozen over, we all set forth to cross
the ice on foot. It took us fourteen hours to walk across.
Anton Neilsen was already ill with scurvy. On the way
across, his nose, eyes, hands, and feet became badly frost
bitten. "We stayed in Nordenskjold's House, which was much
warmer than our hut, about a fortnight — till January 26.
Then we had to go back for more provisions. We left
Neilsen at Cape Thordsen with food enough. Bad weather
came on after we left, and for twelve days we could not
return ; then, however, it cleared and we went back, dragging
a sledge laden with food. We found Neilsen in a very bad
way.' His nose had dropped off; his feet were black, his
hands almost black. He was also very ill with scurvy. On
February 20, we had again to go for provisions. We left
him with three weeks' food, but he seemed to us to be nearly
dying, though we expected to return before he died.
"About the middle of the fjord we came upon open
water and saw some walruses. Because of the open water

THE TOMB OF THE SKIPPER.

chap, iv ICE FJORD 57
we could not go straight on, but had to follow beside a lead,
which two bears were also following. We all landed near
Hyperite Hat, and there we killed the bears and left them,
meaning to go back at once with our sledges from Advent
Bay, and take the bear's meat over to Cape Thordsen, for
we had made in all three sledges out of boards and barrel-
irons ; two of these were at Advent Bay, and one was at
Cape Thordsen.
" Bad weather again prevented us from crossing, or even
from going for the bears. The ice broke up in the fjord
and it was all open water, much more open than it is now.
In fact from February to May there was no ice in Ice
Fjord, but only open water. Our coal now gave out again,
but we fetched a supply of three and a half barrels full from
the little valley behind Advent Point. The bad weather con
tinued till March 13, when we went in our open boat for
the skins of the bears. The big one was still quite good,
but the smaller had been torn by other bears. We tried
to go over to Cape Thordsen, but loose ice came packing
down on us, and we had to return to Advent Bay.
" Now the skipper became very ill with scurvy. He
hobbled about on crutches for a time, but at last could no
longer walk. For twenty-seven days he lay in his bunk and
then died. The ground was so hard we could not bury him,
so we put his body into two molasses barrels and covered
them with a sail. He died on the 30th of April. On the
nth of May, we left Advent Bay in our open boat to go to
Bell Sound, for I was stricken with scurvy, and we thought
that some one would come into Bell Sound to look for us,
and so we should be sooner relieved than if we stayed in
Advent Bay. There was no ice anywhere about. We reached
the cape at the north of Bell Sound safely, but were kept
there by bad weather for five days. Then we went on to
the Mittel Hook, where we set up a tent. I lay in it very ill

58 SPITSBERGEN chap, iv
for a month, and thought I should die. One day the Lapp
saw a seal, and he ran, carrying a pail with him, and shot
it and caught the blood in the pail. I drank that and imme
diately began to revive. I shall now get well.
" We did not trouble to go again to Cape Thordsen,
because of course Neilsen has long been dead. I kept a
journal from day to day, but some of it is in Nordenskjold's
House, where no doubt is also the body of the dead man.
When we reach Advent Bay we will show you our hut, and
then you will see that everything is as we have told you."
I wrote the tale down from Thue's lips, but have neces
sarily curtailed it, for he made many digressions, and was
constantly referring to his journal or appealing to the Lapp
for confirmation of the truth of his statements. It only
remains to add that later in the season Air. With went over
to Cape Thordsen, but found no traces of the dead man.
Perhaps after exhausting his food he wandered forth to try
and cross the bay, and fell through the ice, or perhaps he
died in the open air and was eaten by bears. No one will
ever know.
The same night that these men were taken on board, the
steamer Virgo anchored alongside of us with Herr Andree
and his balloon on board. She took on Mr. Stadling and
such of our passengers as were going to join the balloon
party, whilst we took from the Virgo the party of Swedes
— Baron de Geer, Lieutenant O. Knorring, and their eight
seamen— who were coming to make an accurate survey of
the shores of Ice Fjord, the existing chart of which is so
faulty. The Virgo presently sailed for Danes Island. She
had left Tromso two days before us, but was delayed by
heavy ice.
The morning of the 20th was cloudy and grey ; ice
conditions, however, were favourable to advance, so we
steamed ahead at an early hour. Navigating slowly and

chap, iv ICE FJORD 59
with great care, the mouth of Advent Bay was steadily
approached. Far inland we could not see, but enough of
the southern shore was visible to reveal the character of
the country in that direction. It consists of soft, horizontally
bedded rock, divided roughly into two stages or cut-down
plateaus. Of the upper plateau only fragments remain,
forming the higher mountains, such as Mounts Lindstrom
and Nordenskjold. The lower plateau, which was probably
at sea-level when the upper plateau was being cut down,
is represented by more considerable remains, but it also is
divided by numerous valleys, and largely cut away. There
remains no continuous plateau over which you can travel,
only a series of broad ridges all of approximately the same
height. Winding her way amongst floating ice-blocks, the Raft
sund ultimately reached the mouth of Advent Bay, which is
rendered narrow by a low spit of land that juts out from the
west and makes the harbour so safe, for ice cannot drive
directly in upon a ship that lies behind the spit. The steamer
entered without difficulty, and came to anchor between the
fast ice of the bay and Advent Point. Our first goal was at
tained. We landed at once with Thue to visit the winterers'
hut. Their poor little vessel lay near the shore, firmly
fixed in the ice and full of water — doomed to sink as soon
as the ice broke up about her. On the beach were such
articles of value as they had saved — chains, anchor, rein
deer carcasses, antlers, and so forth. The reindeer were
in a frozen heap. There were also five barrels of reindeer
meat, to which bears had recently helped themselves, for
their great spoor was plainly visible in the snow. On a
raised beach, some thirty feet higher, was the hut, and by it,
in two barrels, the body of the skipper, close to some old
graves. The hut was neatly built, dug out of the ground
about a yard deep, and with trim steps leading down to it.

60 SPITSBERGEN chap, iv
The end was formed of wood admirably joined, and with
a door that shut closely and locked. There were some
small glass windows, and a fireplace with an iron -pipe
chimney. These things were brought from the ship. Within
all was perfectly tidy — a bed along one side, various utensils,
all clean and proper. The seamen's chests were ranged
on one side, and on each was a label praying the finder,
"for pity's sake," to send it to the owner's wife at such
a place. All the camp sites we could see were equally exposed,
so we decided to pitch our tents by the Swedes, close to
the edge of the fjord on a sandy and gravelly flat, dry
enough, but not offering very good holding for tent-pegs.
After dining on board, we began landing our goods, and
set up the tents about a little square. There were six in
all. Pre-eminent for size was Studley's African marquee.
The others were three Whymper tents with flies, and two
smaller ones intended mainly for use inland. Each of these
was seven feet long by five feet wide and less than five feet
high. They were of the Mummery pattern, made of strong
Willesden canvas, rather heavy, but perfectly waterproof. For
supports we used two ice-axes with pieces of wood made
to fit on their ends and lengthen them to proper dimen
sions. The weak point about these tents is the number
of cords required to hold them out, and consequently of
pegs to hold the cords. In a rocky country this does not
matter, because stones can be used, but in bogs one must
have pegs. Three men in one of these little tents made
rather a tight pack, but there was plenty of room for two
and their small baggage.
The view from Advent Point camp was not seen to best
advantage in the grey light beneath low clouds, though across
the fjord to the large glaciers of Cape Boheman it was now
and always lovely, and the floating masses of ice, that drifted

THE SURVIVORS AND THEIR HUT.

chap, iv ICE FJORD 6i
in and out with the tide close before us, made a novel
and beautiful foreground. But our eyes most frequently
turned in the opposite direction, for there lay our fate, our
route inland. All we could see was the frozen surface of
the bay and the white banks on either hand, with a valley
bending away beyond, to the east, between white hill-slopes
under a roof of cloud. I was destined never to behold this
view clear. The hills were always buried in cloud when I
was at Advent Point.
It was delightful to be again under canvas, living in pure
air with no dark roof to shut out the sky. I sat till midnight
writing in the door of my tent, and needing no extra clothing.
The air was fresh indeed, but its freshness served only to
make the blood course warmly through the veins. Late at
night a shot was fired from the steamer — at some bird, I
suppose. Gregory, half asleep, leaped up. He thought it was
the Masai coming to loot his camp. How varied are the
excitements of travel in different places !

STRIKING CAMP.

CHAPTER V
ADVENT BAY TO CAIRN CAMP
EXPLORATION brings keenest delights in its train ; it
has also detestable concomitants, most of which may
be summed up in the word, baggage. The problem of
exploration is to get the baggage over the ground; it is easy
enough to transport one's self. Thus the importance of equip
ment becomes manifest. Its virtue is to be as light and
compact as possible, consistent with the functions it has to
fulfil. Our equipment was in reality compact, yet in actual
amount it was large. Most of it was to be stored at the
base, for we could only carry two sledge-loads inland at any
one time. Now every individual object had to be landed,
piled, combined, sorted, distributed. Nearly a ton of hay,
oats, and beans had to be carted up from the shore and
stacked. Food, sugar, salt, knives and spoons, and every
little detail had to be unpacked, divided, and made ready
for use at any required moment. All this was the work of
hours many and long. Moreover the Raftsund would pre
sently sail away, taking our last mail for some weeks ; letters
therefore had to be written home, bills on board paid, and
all preparations completed for being marooned as com-

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ADVENT POINT CAMP.
chap, v CAIRN CAMP 63
fortably as possible. The work was done in the open air,
whilst cold showers fell, and gusts of wind blew shavings,
dust, and every light thing hither and thither in odious
errancy. The worst trouble was to land the ponies. A small
barge had been brought up for this purpose. It was hoisted
off the deck by the donkey engine and swung overboard.
For a moment it hung in the air, then, with a loud report,
the chain snapped and the. barge fell and broke asunder in
the midst when it dashed upon the water. So a raft had
to be made out of planks laid across two whale-boats, and
on this platform the trembling animals were safely brought
ashore one by one. Great was their joy to feel solid earth
beneath their feet. They kicked about with glee and rolled
on the ground, then sniffed for grazing, but found little
satisfaction on the stony flat, which in a few weeks' time
was to yield them so succulent a harvest.
The crew of the Raftsund worked like fury to get rid of
the materials for the hut, for the drift ice greatly increased
in amount, setting across from the north and packing into
the bay in a continuous stream. The steamer's position had
often to be changed, and men in boats poled the big masses
away from the neighbourhood of the screw and kept the
ship free. At one time it almost looked as though she
would be beset, but the tide turned and the danger passed.
It was a real danger. A week or so later, when I was in
land, I am informed the ice again set in much more heavily
and almost filled the bay, so that, if the Raftsund had then
been there, she would assuredly have suffered. Overboard
went the hut's materials, the planks into boats or on to the
raft ; the beams point downwards into the water, plung
ing right below the surface with a great splash, and almost
leaping out again with the recoil.
We named the ponies Spits and Bergen. Spits was a

64 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
mare of very phlegmatic disposition who soon made herself
quite at home. Bergen was a nervous beast, and signified
his dissatisfaction with his new surroundings by presently
breaking away and careering over the flat in wild terror.
When recaptured, he was trembling and foaming with fright —
a bad beginning. I noticed, lying on the beach, a small sledge,
the property of the winterers, which Klaus Thue had made
out of boards and barrel-irons. He gladly sold it to me for
a few kroner, and it served us well, being far better suited
for inland work than the costly machines we brought with
us from London. Had we then known what we soon after
wards learned, we should have sent back to Tromso for a few
more of the same stout pattern. Garwood at once harnessed
Spits to this sledge and drew our goods on it to camp. She
settled down to the work and did it well.
Our preparations were watched with a somewhat embar
rassing interest by the steamer's passengers, who landed one
by one and took snap-shots at us with their cameras, not
always immortalising our most dignified moments. One
passenger, who came with us all the way from Trond-
hjem in order to see Herr Andree, and had never once
quitted the ship, now landed and gave infinite delight to
every one. His costume was most picturesque — long boots,
a long ulster, a great fur cap, a revolver slung round his
waist, a horn over one shoulder, and a camera over the
other. The horn, he explained, would be valuable if he were
to be lpst on the mountains, whose gentlest sloping foot he
never approached. He walked up and down on the beach
with dramatic gait, then turned towards the bay and
solemnly fired off all the chambers of his revolver, after
which he blew a blast on the horn. Then he fired off his
camera in all directions, and so returned to the ship and
disappeared. Later on in the season, I am told, though I did not see

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 65
them, many strange tourists came and disported them
selves strangely at Advent Bay, during the few hours that
the weekly tourist boat used to wait there. They always
brought rifles with them, under the impression that bears,
or at least reindeer, herded at every point along the shore.
There being nothing to shoot, they nevertheless fired off the
rounds of ammunition in their little store, aiming at birds,
or merely into the air. Many were the narrow escapes of
inoffensive onlookers. A bullet came close over the tent of
one of my companions. Others whizzed near the heads of
the salvage men working at the winterers' wreck. One foolish
creature is said to have mistaken a photographer with his
head under a dark cloth for a reindeer, and put a bullet
through his hat. Another, when we were away in the little
steamer on the north coast, stalked, and I believe fired upon
our inoffensive ponies. At last, for mere safety's sake, two little
targets were set up between the inn and the sea. " What are
these ? " I asked on returning to Advent Bay. " They are the
game the tourists fire at," was the answer. Poor things ! they
had been told that Spitsbergen was a sportsman's El Dorado.
Asking for walruses and bears, they were given — targets !
Within little more than twenty-four hours from arrival,
the Raftsund blew her whistle and began to move away,
still pitching the inn overboard as she went. We watched
her steering a very devious course through the ice, heading
not for the sea, but due north across the fjord, where,
after two hours of great anxiety, her ice-master found open
water. Baron de Geer is my authority for the statement
that such profusion of ice at this time of year is unusual.
It was the more remarkable because, as we presently learned,
the sea to the north and west of Spitsbergen was opener
this year than it had been at any time during the memory
of man. This ice, however, did not come from the north or
west, but out of Wybe Jans Water, round the South Cape,
E

66 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
where we saw so much drift ice, and so up the west coast.
When Baron de Geer was in Spitsbergen before, at the same
time of year, there was no ice in this fjord, and the snow
was melted off the hills to a considerable height. Now
snow was lying thickly down to the very water's edge, and
two-thirds of Advent Bay was frozen up, as indeed were all
the other arms of Ice Fjord.
All this day (June 21) clouds hung low above us, but
upon Advent Vale, the valley at the head of the bay, the
sun continuously shone, leading us to the mistaken belief
that the climate of the interior might be better than that
of the coast. Attracted by the brightness, Trevor-Battye
and Studley started for a walk inland, up the west bank of
the bay and the river at its head, nearly as far as where we
afterwards pitched, Bolter Camp. They suffered many of
the discomforts we afterwards experienced, and found no
reindeer, no new birds, nothing that in any way pleased
them. Studley described the country as one botched in the
making and chucked aside unfinished. For his part, he said,
he was "dead off it," and would get away the first chance
he had. Trevor-Battye was not much less displeased. He
came to study the birds of the country, and hoped to find
much new matter of interest away from the coast, but he
found nothing, and saw little promise of finding anything
novel. Most of the birds of Spitsbergen haunt the coast,
and there build their nests.
Meanwhile Garwood and I worked away at the baggage,
helped by Ted in the intervals of sketching. We sneezed
and shivered and pitied ourselves between whiles, but the
work progressed. Gregory suffered worst from the chill,
and became visibly unwell, so that he had to take to his
sleeping-bag and feed on slops. This was the death struggle
of a colony of African malarial germs within him. They
were presently destroyed, and he became as strong as any

ICE IN ADVENT BAY.

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 67
one. The daylight night seemed yet more miserable, not
that the temperature was specially, low, measured by the
thermometer. There is really no relation between thermo-
metric scales and the sensation of cold. A blustering wind,
edged with the keenness of the neighbouring ice, howled
over the dreary waste. When the time for rising came, the
warm sleeping-bags were hard to quit, but quitted they
were, and work went forward, Trevor-Battye skinning birds,
Studley excavating a huge fireplace, Ted sketching, Garwood
and I disentangling the stores and supplies needed for load
ing the sledges. Sledge-loading was new to both of us and
took an unconscionable time. By two P.M. one sledge
was finished, the canvas cover laced over it, a pony caught
and harnessed, and we were ready for an experimental
march, exactly forty-eight hours from the moment when
the Raftsund first cast anchor in Advent Bay.
We started along the shore, which here was terraced by
a series of sharply-defined parallel ribs, following the curva
ture of the coast and very neatly sloped. They were made
by the edge of the fast ice pressing against the beach and
leaving its mark at different tide-levels. A belt of fast ice
still hung by the shore, some hundred yards wide, all round
the open part of the bay. We toiled over the flat ground,
sinking deeply in from the first step, but rejoicing to observe
how well the sledge slipped along on its ski runners. It was
but a brief moment of satisfaction, for very soon came the
wide bed of a torrent, or rather a whole series of channels
made by the changeful stream, a ridged and furrowed stretch
of large broken stones. Here the sledge began to bump and
bang, pitching down into the channels and being hauled up
the other side, the sharp edges of the rocks scraping and
shaving the ash runners, and the unevenness of the ground
straining the sledge in every direction. Clearly, if there was
to be much of this kind of work, the sledges would not

68 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
stand it. But we saw long stretches of snow ahead, and
believed that they would' form the chief part of our way.
Thus the north-west corner of the bay was gained, where
Advent Point springs from the mainland. Now we turned
south, ascending to traverse above a long low rock-precipice
that borders this part of the bay. The traverse was over
snow-beds and bogs, into which Spits, sank up to the belly.
Garwood led or rather dragged her along, for we had no
whip or other stimulant. Pedersen and I hung on to the
sledge to keep it from sliding sideways down hill. All went
merrily enough till we reached our first gully. The slopes
of the soft crumbling hills in this part of Spitsbergen are
seamed with gullies cut out by streams that carry off the
melted snow from above. As yet we had no conception of
the amount of melting accomplished in the long spring and
summer days in the Arctic regions. When the thaw sets
in, and lasts all twenty-four hours of one day after another,
it reduces the snow for a considerable depth to mere slush.
The ground beneath remains hard frozen and slippery till
the last fragment of snow upon it is gone, then it too thaws
and turns to bog. The amount of water that pours off the
hills and floods the valleys, during the month when the
melting is at its maximum, is enormous, and denudation is
correspondingly energetic. Thus a stream, which by the
end of August will be dry, digs into a slope a gully of
astonishing depth, or forms on the flat a fan of wide
extent, rendered irregular by countless channels. It is un
necessary here to enlarge upon this statement, for the course
of our journey made us intimately acquainted with all the
effects of denudation upon an unexpectedly large scale.
The hill-side gullies at this time were filled with snow
to the brim, and the streams flowed down tunnels beneath.
In fact, the gullies were snow couloirs of gentle slope
wherein the snow as yet retained a certain consistency. At

PONIES STUCK IN BOGS AND SNOW.

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 69
the first we unharnessed the pony and led her over, then
ourselves dragged and lifted the sledge. The next gully
was treated with less respect, and Spits did the hauling
with so much good-will and kept her footing so skilfully
that we relied upon her cleverness to negotiate all the snow-
couloirs that succeeded. Three valleys leading westward
opened one after another. In the drainage debris of each
were fragments of coal. The swamps about their mouths
were laborious to cross. Fog filled all these valleys, so that
we could not see up them ; later on we learned that they are
merely short trenches eaten back into the old plateau by
vigorous streams, some going farther in than others but
none being true orographical depressions. Once only this
day we just discerned the edge of the snow-field on the
plateau, curling over the top of the slope in a huge cornice.
Three hours of such work covered about five miles, and
was all the pony could accomplish, so we hauled the sledge
on to a dry knoll, and set forth to return to camp a good
deal wiser and somewhat less enthusiastic than we started.
Now that we could have eyes for the view, there was little
to be seen. The bay, almost wholly covered with ice,
spread abroad beneath the low cliff under a roof of grey
cloud, which obscured the hills and saddened the valleys.
Everywhere the eye rested on barrenness and desolation.
The sighing of wind and the cries of geese by the water's
edge alone disturbed the silence of this abandoned place.
We returned in our steps, warmed and enlivened by the work
done, and presently cheered by a burst of sunshine. It came
over us by what seemed to be the grave of a sailor, a mound
framed in a ring of stones bearing a board thus inscribed —
KAPT. VOGELGESANG
S.3. Columbia
Hamburg.
D. 29. 7 . 1893

7o SPITSBERGEN chap, v
We wasted much valuable sentiment on this supposed un
fortunate, and only some weeks later learned that the
monument was raised to commemorate a gigantic beer-
drinking bout or Kneipe enjoyed by the tourists who came
up in the great Hamburg-American liner on the date men
tioned. Other Kneipe-monuments were erected beside this
one during the course of the summer — gaily painted and
inscribed beer-barrels, iron flags, and so forth. Assuredly
the vulgarisation of Spitsbergen has begun.
The view from this spot is indeed the best in the im
mediate neighbourhood of Advent Point. When the glaciers
of Cape Boheman are clear, away across Ice Fjord, and
the water lies blue beneath them, it must be superb. It
was charming even on this dull day, when fog and cloud
enveloped the distance, for the outline of the bay was grace
ful, and the margin of the smooth ice curved harmoniously
from it. Sunlight carpeted the mottled frozen floor, except
where a cloud cast a blue shadow down into the midst,
whilst the floating ice-blocks glittered off Advent Point. On
the plateau, where the ill-fated crew wintered, the Norwegian
flag waved over the hut, in honour of the dead man whose
body had just been consigned to its last resting-place in
presence of the Swedes and some of the members of our
expedition. When camp was reached the cold wind blew
again and the sun was hidden. Larger ice-floes than ever
came drifting past the point. Our last night by the shore
was depressing enough.
Next day (June 23), we were to make our final start
inland. It was neither fairly dry nor tolerably fine. The
loading of the second sledge was at last finished. It was
burdened down at one end with half a truss of compressed
hay, whilst various objects, remembered almost too late, were
tied on outside the canvas cover in picturesque confusion.
Garwood and Pedersen were to drive the sledge ; I was to

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 71
set forward alone with the- plane-table and begin the sketch
survey. Gregory walked a little way with me, full of regrets
that he could not at once come farther, but he was not yet
cured of the effects of his chill. He sat on Vogelgesang's
beer-trophy, while I set up the instrument for the first time.
The theory of plane-tabling is so simple, the instrument
so devoid of complication, whilst in practice at home the
working seems so easy, that the actual difficulties encountered
when a new country comes to be surveyed are not readily
imagined by one who has no actual experience. " I suppose,"
said Trevor-Battye to me, " the plane-table work is very
easy." As a matter of fact it is often very difficult, but nowhere
more so than in Spitsbergen, where it is heart-breaking.
There, in the broad valleys and featureless slopes, it is practi
cally impossible to decide from one station what shall be
the position of the next, or from that to identify the preced
ing. The compass moreover does not enable you to orient
the table properly, for the hills are full of iron-ore, which
deflects the needle in the most changeful manner. If one
could carry a theodolite, and take occasional true-bearings,
this source of error would be removed, but for this observa
tion the sun must be visible. In Spitsbergen one seldom sees
the sun. Again, the hill-tops are for days together covered
with clouds, so that it is the exception to gain a second sight
of the whole series of points observed from previous stations.
Frequent showers wet the paper and wrinkle its even surface,
and then it will not dry for hours, so that you cannot ink
in your sketch while details are fresh in your memory.
Thus estimates have often to take the place of observations,
unless you can afford to wait upon the weather, as an
explorer never can. The inaccuracies introduced one day
can seldom be corrected on another, and thus perplexities
multiply. The quality of the work finally produced depends
upon the alertness of the traveller, upon his keeping his

72 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
eyes constantly on the watch for momentary glimpses, which
may reveal the structure of the country and by degrees
build up in his mind a clear conception of the forms and
relations of mountains, ridges, and valleys, to which such
accurate observations as he may have been able to make
serve to give precision. When the journey is ended, and
the map redrawn at home, it often happens that the parti
cular photographs which were relied upon for certain details
prove to be failures. All your other blunders and omissions
then become apparent, and ultimately what you get for
your pains is a survey in which any fool can detect errors
and manifest them as proofs of your incapacity. Yet sur
veying a new land, with all its troubles, possesses great
fascinations. It is delightful to behold the blank paper
slowly covered with the semblance, however vague, of a
portion of the earth's surface before unmapped. The
interest of every view is increased when it has to be
analysed structurally. Each mile traversed explains the mile
that went before. Each corner turned reveals a tantalising
secret. Every march solves a problem and leaves in the
heart of the surveyor a delightful sense of something
accomplished. Gregory and I parted as we saw Garwood approaching
with the tandem of ponies dragging the loud-complaining
sledge. Both animals worked well, the timid Bergen on the
whole better than phlegmatic Spits, who sometimes jibbed.
Gaily the two of them hauled the sledge over the shelves
of the terraced slopes above the west bank of Advent Bay,
ploughing it through the snow-couloirs, and tearing it over
slopes of rock-debris, which scraped away the edges of the
ash ski-runners far too quickly. When the second sledge
was reached, the loads were rearranged and on we went.
All day long the light was pale and feeble, like that of a
cloudy English afternoon in December. Cold showers fell

ADVENT KAY IN AUGUST, BUNTING BLUFF IN THE DISTANCE.

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 73
with increasing frequency and in increasing volume. For
two hours we toiled across slopes, so boggy that the ponies
sank into them up to their bellies, and once both stuck fast
at the same time, seated on their haunches long enough for
Garwood to take their photographs. Beyond the cliff a
descent was made on to the flat ground near the head of
the bay. It was thought that the worst of our troubles were
now over, and that henceforward the route would be easy
as far ahead as could be seen. How little we knew !
The exact position of the head of the bay was not dis
coverable, for the river empties into it through a hybrid
region of land and water, land that at the best is swamp,
and water that is mud. Now land and water were alike
enveloped in snow, between which and the frozen surface
of the bay was no line of demarcation. We kept beyond
the snow on a portion of the great bog which fills the whole
valley bottom hereabouts. The summer thaw had as yet
only penetrated about a foot deep into the spongy ground,
sometimes less, and there were patches covered with ice, good
to travel over, for the ponies' shoes were fitted with long
spikes. But the frozen islands ended all too soon, and the
snow beds were utterly soft and had to be waded. Many
side-valleys opened, all leading up to the plateau between
Advent and Coles Bays. At the mouth of each was a many-
channelled fan of stone-debris, about half a mile wide. All
the channels were filled with snow-slush or running water.
They had to be waded, one after another, with the water
washing right over the sledges, the contents of which were
protected by Willesden canvas covers. On these occasions
the ponies kicked and floundered about. Their work was
very severe, and they were as yet in poor condition.
We soon became callous to wet, fortunately before reach
ing the worst place of all, where there was more water than
land, and the moss merely stood up in islands and ridges

74 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
out of the water. Rain poured persistently, and all the hill
tops were lost in cloud. Evil conditions for surveying !
One long snow-bed, through which a stream flowed, was
powdered over with broken coal. Bits of coal lay about
everywhere, and the bogs were in places black with it.
Once I stumbled over what I thought to be a stump of
wood. Looking back to see how such an unwonted sub
stance could be there, I found it was a reindeer's antler.
The head was so buried in moss that only the tip of a
tine emerged. We found plenty more in the same condi
tion, for the whole interior of Spitsbergen is strewn with
antlers. Shortly afterwards reindeer footprints appeared,
and we presently sighted two deer, looking grey in the
distance against the black stones. It is generally said that,
in Spitsbergen, reindeer are so tame that they walk up to
you to be shot. This is by no means always the case.
These deer when they winded us went off up a side valley,
and Garwood could not come near them in the time at our
disposal. Plenty of bernacle geese flew about or honked at
us from the swamps. Often they sat still and let us come
within fifty yards of them. But we had no time to attend
to their challenge ; we only thought of forging ahead.
At ten P.M. the mouth of the fourth side-valley was
reached. Here it was necessary to pitch camp (Bolter Camp,
230 feet). A site was chosen on a bit of rising ground at
the edge of the swamp. It was spongy and damp as could
be. Resting the elbow on the rubber sheet, as one lay on
the ground, it sank in and made a hole. But there was
no drier spot within range, whilst here was grazing for the
ponies — a matter of importance considering the small amount
of fodder we could carry, for it was already apparent that
our ton of hay and oats at Advent Point would be mostly
wasted. The little tent was soon set up with a sledge on each

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 75
side to tie it to instead of pegs. The ponies were hobbled
and let go. We took off our wet clothes and crawled into
the reindeer-skin bags, which are as gymnastically hard to
enter as they are morally hard to quit. The spirit-stove
was lit, ration cartridges cooked, and tea made. We supped
with deep satisfaction, knowing that we had grappled with the
real work of our journey, and that the first and, we flattered
ourselves — how erroneously ! — the worst stage was accom
plished. Supper and rest had been earned. By two A.M.
journals were written, and we could settle down for sleep.
Side by side we lay, Garwood, Pedersen, and I, each in
his bag, looking like three large dirty white cocoons. Heads
were inside the bags, partly for warmth, more for darkness'
sake. Thus protected, none ever suffered from cold ; some
times we were over-warm. Rain poured soothingly on to
the roof, but the poor ponies suffered and came up to
the tent seeking shelter. They kept stumbling over the
guy ropes. Driven off again and again, they constantly
returned. The wind was from the north-east, a bad quarter, said
Pedersen, who prophesied fine weather with a south wind.
Experience taught us that all winds bring rain in Spitsbergen.
If the weather means to be fine, it is fine whatever the wind ;
usually it is foul. Next morning (June 24) it was impossible
to start, for no surveying could be done, everything being
enveloped in fog. We had to stay where we were till the posi
tion of the camp could be fixed. So we sat up in our bags and
were fully employed over details of all sorts — changing and
packing photograph films, cooking, and so forth. In a tiny
tent there is always much to be done, for everything takes
an inordinate time to do. Whatever can upset does upset.
Things become immediately mislaid, being necessarily piled
one on another. Order cannot be maintained without a little
space. Where three men are crowded together in the area

76 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
they just cover, every search for an object involves gymnastic
gyrations. I concluded to add a " lazy tongs " to Gregory's
list of camp indispen sables.
Venturing forth with bare feet to inspect the weather, I
stumbled into a filthy bog-hole for the first of many times.
Our wet clothes of yesterday were as wet as ever. Clouds
came yet lower and rain never ceased. The day was pass
ing and nothing was accomplished. We filled ourselves
with ration cartridges, and pitched the plates out to be
washed by the heavens. Instead of that Spits licked them
clean, and then pushed her head in at the tent door and
made a face at us, curling up her lips into what looked like
a complicated sneer. At last there was a brief clearance.
An unsatisfactory observation was taken and 'camp could
be struck. The sledges were nearly loaded. Spits was just
harnessed, Bergen being harnessed, when he gave us the
slip and went careering around. There was no catching
him. Picture our disgust ! Little was said ; the work of
preparing the sledges went on. We hoped the beast would
return to the oat-bag, but his memory of the flesh-pots of
Advent Bay was a stronger attraction. In a few minutes he
became small in the distance, Pedersen was accordingly
sent off to bring him back. He was found at Advent Point,
which he reached just in time to be harnessed to another
sledge and made to draw coal from the neighbouring hill.
Our prospects were dismal. There was no redeeming
feature. WTe determined to make a half march with the
remaining pony and one sledge and then to return for the
other. The weather remained abominable — rain falling from
low clouds in the midst of the bleakest surroundings ima
ginable. How it came to pass that the interior of Spits
bergen had remained for us to explore was no longer a
mystery. The job was more laborious than any of us
anticipated. So much the better, had we been properly

CROSSING A FLOODED TORRENT.

chap, v CAIRN CAMP 77
equipped, but now we knew that the sledges were, for
the purpose in hand, mere costly ineptitudes. They were
breaking down at all points, the runners so scraped and
torn away that it seemed probable they would vanish in
two more marches. To contemplate our problems was
mere waste of time. They had to be solved by action, so
about four P.M. we set forth, descending from our camp pro
montory on to the wide stone fan at the mouth of Bolter
Valley. If the previous march was bad, this was infinitely worse,
for the reason that the farther we went inland the more
backward was the season, and the more frequent, deep,
and utterly rotten and sodden was the snow. The worst of
it was that we might better have stayed where we were.
Our present plan was to form a camp at some suitable
point inland, whence we might make expeditions in various
directions, and more especially one over to Low Sound.
Pedersen, repeating the traditions of reindeer hunters, said
that Bolter Valley led to Coles Bay, and that the next (Fox
Valley) was the first that led towards Low Sound. In this,
as in everything else he told us, he was inaccurate, the
fact being that the reindeer hunters know little about the
interior beyond a very few miles from the coast. Bolter
Valley divides a short way up, as, but for the fog, we should
have seen. One branch goes almost due south to Bolter
Pass, and so to the valley of the Shallow River and Low
Sound ; the other leads west over the plateau to the Coles
Bay Valley. From Bolter Camp we might have explored
both routes. As it was, we did the best thing we knew of,
and went pegging ahead up the left bank of Advent Vale,
which here makes a great bend to the east.
A few minutes' trudge brought us to the edge of the
many-channelled Bolter River, now in full flood with the
melting of the snows in the large basins it drains. A man

78 SPITSBERGEN chap, v
going alone might have picked his way across the channels
and not gone in much above the knee. But one of us had
to guide the pony, whilst the other held the sledge, giving it
a twist now and then to avoid big rocks, or prevent it from
being rolled over by the torrent. As a matter of fact, it did
overturn in the deepest place, so we were both soaked to
the waist in the icy water — a fortunate preliminary that
made us callous to future wettings. Bogs of all sorts lay in
our way, and infinite streams. Gregory, a few days later,
counted the number in a single batch over a similar fan,
not a mile broad, and found fifty-two which had to be
waded, besides others small enough to be jumped. The
ordinary bogs were of little account ; one sank in up to the
calf of the leg and floundered on. It was the snow-bogs
that we grew to hate — deep beds of snow, smooth and solid-
looking, but water-logged, and affording no particle of sup
port. The foot went right through them to the solid
ground, making a green hole that instantly filled with water
to the brim. Whilst, however, it was impossible to stand on
this stuff, great exertion was required to push through it.
The pony sometimes sank into these snow-bogs up to her
neck. She could only advance by a series of leaps. Some
times she would fall over on her side and become stuck,
sometimes she was held tight, seated on her haunches, with
her forelegs beating the air. More than once we feared
she would break her back, but she won our admiration by
the pluck and intelligence she manifested, and by her con
sequently rapid development of skill.
All the march we were continually crossing below the
mouths of little valleys, each discharging a stream over a
many-channelled fan. Thus we rang the changes on
streams to be waded, stone-slopes to be stumbled over, and
snow-bogs to be floundered through. Each stream had
snow-bogs for banks, making the scramble out of it a

ADVENT BAY FROM CAIRN CAMP.

chap, v CAIRN CAMP

79

matter of difficulty. At last came the very large fan at the
mouth of Fox Valley, up which we proposed to make
our farther advance. We had therefore to camp on a
boggy knoll at its mouth, choosing this exposed position
because the top was dry and visible from afar. We built
a stone-man for further emphasis, and called the place
Cairn Camp (340 feet).
Throughout the march there had been no view save of
barren wastes and the feet of frozen hills, cut off at a height
of about 500 feet by a flat grey cloud-blanket. Now,
looking back down Advent Bay, we could still distinguish
the Point, and far beyond it across Ice Fjord the glaciers
and ranges behind Cape Boheman, bright under sunlight.
That particular piece of country was far more often beheld
by the sun than any other spot in the island that we saw.
When it was raining everywhere else, sunlight gilded the
Boheman glaciers.
It rained heavily when we began to pitch camp, and a
fog came close about us. A white fox sneaked up to watch
our doings, glaucous gulls flew by and faded away in the
mist, purple sand-pipers uttered their plaintive cry, and the
murmur of many waters filled the air. We fed Spits, and
rested ourselves under shelter, with wet legs stuck forth
beyond the mackintosh sheet. A short excursion up Fox
Valley revealed difficulties, and induced doubts as to whether
that was the right way to Low Sound. It was a bleak
winding valley with a narrow stony floor, broken by a
stream in a deep gully, whose precipitous walls were fringed
all along both sides by great snow cornices. The only way
ponies could take sledges up it was along the bed of the
stream, where ours would be smashed up in a short time.
Clearly we must climb to some high point and take a good
view round, before a decision could be come to about what
should next be done. The only food on the sledge was a

80 SPITSBERGEN

CHAP. V

valuable but unattractive substance called Bovril Emergency
Food. It was so securely soldered up in a strong tin that,
on an emergency, it could not have been opened. We
smashed one side in, and cursed the man that packed it.
The return journey was dull and depressing to all but
Spits. She rejoiced in the erroneous belief that she was
going home and to Bergen's company. The clouds were
no less dense than before. The mournful boggy slopes
seemed sadder and more deserted. The character of the
scenery is understood when it is perceived how the surfaces
of all the hillsides, softened by frost and wet, slowly flow
down, as bog glaciers, to lower levels. Thus all except
a small portion of what once was Advent Bay is now a
muddy plain, and this in turn is being overflowed by bog
accumulations along the foot of the hills.
Bolter Camp was reached in less than three hours,
Spits quickening her pace at the end, and hurrying up to
the second sledge ; she looked round and neighed, but no
answer came, for Bergen was far away. After a brief halt
and a meal of lime-juice nodule and biscuit, the second start
was made. The way seemed longer, and Spits became worse
bogged than ever in deep snow slush. She was too fatigued
to extricate herself. Standing waist-deep in the green and
freezing compound, we had to dig her out with our hands.
The final pull up to Cairn Camp almost overtaxed her
powers, but when the goal came in view she made bravely
for it, and was rewarded on arrival to the best of our ability.
Unpacking and cooking occupied another two hours, and
then at last, about five a.m., we could turn in and enjoy the
soothing patter of rain upon the tent roof, almost the
sweetest music that can introduce slumber.

Mountains behind Cape Boheman from Advent Point

CHAPTER VI
ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TO LOW SOUND
BY this time our occupations no longer bore any relation
to the indications of the clock. All twenty-four hours
round there was the same effect of full daylight ; the tem
perature between midnight and eight in the morning being
perhaps lower than at other hours, but with no appreciable
dimming of the sun's light. Thus we started for our marches,
halted, cooked, and slept whenever was most convenient, the
tendency being to lengthen out the days, as measured between
intervals of sleep. The freedom from fear of benightment
is a great relief. The corresponding lack of stimulus to hurry
is a loss. On the whole, the loss overbalances the gain.
Our plan, for what must be called June 25, was to
climb a hill anywhere to the south of camp, looking for a
view, which the cloud-roof did not render a hopeless pros
pect, for it was a little higher than before and very much
thinner, the sun even breaking through sometimes. Pedersen
returned with Bergen from Advent Bay, and went off again
up the main valley after reindeer, whereof two presently fell
to his rifle. After laying out our things to dry, Garwood
and I withdrew the ice-axes from their place as tent-poles,
and, leaving the tent flat on the ground, set forth up Fox
Valley, which opened to the south just behind camp. We
followed its left bank over snow beds, bogs, and stony tracks,
descending into and crossing two deep, precipitous - sided
gullies, whose streams, covered by snow-tunnels, drain glacier-
filled hollows in the mountain mass to the west. Beyond the

82 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
second gully we turned west up an easy snow-slope, then
a more toilsome slope of debris, which narrowed to a ridge.
Here Garwood discovered fossils in great number, and more
were soon appropriated than could be carried, so we cast
them on to the clean snow-slope below, where they could
be found on the descent. While the fossils lasted progress
was slow ; eyes were glued upon the ground and the de
veloping view was forgotten. Presently the debris became
too steep and rotten to be farther ascended, so we turned
aside to the neighbouring snow-ridge. I have not elsewhere
seen debris slopes at such a steep angle as many we en
countered in Spitsbergen. The reason is that the friable
rocks there are smashed up so completely that the fine dust
holds the fragments together, and, by increasing the friction
between the pieces, prevents them from sliding. D6bris
slopes of such steepness are most laborious and even difficult
to ascend ; the surface is too steep to tread upon and not
soft enough to yield readily to a kick. When such slopes
are saturated with wet, the foot adheres to them as though
glued down. On the snow-ridge were no fossils, so the view
received attention. The weather was doubtless clearing.
Advent Bay lay like a map beneath, with sunshine upon its
burnished surface.
The snow arete gave place to a narrow cocks-comb of
the rottenest rock imaginable. Fearing lest the whole thing
should give way, we turned on to the right face, down which
were falling frequent avalanches both of snow and rock.
It became necessary, therefore, to return to the ruinous
crest, which stood upon the ridge like a wall with vertical
sides about forty feet high, so narrow that in several places
it was pierced right through with large holes, and so rotten
that huge masses of rock gave way at a touch, whilst at one
point, above a hole, the entire mass groaned and trembled
as we gingerly picked our way over. An hour was spent

CHAP. VI

LOW SOUND

83

on this part of the climb. The final scramble was easy. On
reaching what we had believed from below was the summit
of a peak, we were surprised to find that it was merely a
promontory between two gullies, jutting out from a wide,
undulating area of snow, or rather of ice, with a snow blanket
upon it. The ice-sheet, several square miles in area, sends
Glacier tongues down many short valleys and gullies. It
was the feet of these we had been crossing between Bolter

MOUNTAINS NEAR ADVENT VALE.

and Cairn
Camps. Af
terwardswe made
the entire
tour of the
mountain
mass, by
crossing Fox Pass, descending Plough Glacier, and return
ing by Bolter Pass. Standing here on the bluff, and looking
across Advent Vale, it was easy to perceive how the plateau
behind had once formed part of a wide-extending flat, which
had been elevated and cut down into many valleys by streams
eating their way back into it. We were, in fact, on what
I have called the lower plateau, looking edgeways along it.
In various directions we could see the remnants of the upper
plateau standing upon it in the form of rounded snow-covered
hills, such as Mounts Lindstrom and Nordenskjold.

84 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
At the point of the bluff, when we arrived, a little snow-
bunting greeted us in so cheery a fashion that we named the
place Bunting Bluff (2480 feet) after him. The view in all
directions was now brilliantly clear. Advent Point lay like a
needle across the bay's mouth. A sloop off it was a tiny
dot on the bright water. The large mountain area behind
Cape Boheman, extending from Nord Fjord to Keerwyk,
was visible in sparkling detail from side to side, with its
three great glaciers flowing down between narrow mountain
ranges. At the foot of one are large hills of moraine, visible
from afar. The sunshine was warm. There was no wind.
To live was joy. Our meal consisted of an Emergency
tablet, a biscuit, and a lime-juice nodule ! Burning a
tobacco sacrifice, we returned thanks that we were not, as
an Alpine party, burdened with the carriage of bottles of
red wine and bulky foods. But how good a bottle of wine
would have been, carried by some one else !
The plateau behind rose into a low wide mound that
hid all the southern prospect, and would command a more
complete panorama. We wandered up it, one after the other,
rejoicing in the splendour of the sunlight on the snow, and
leaving the rope behind. The full extent of our section of
the plateau now became apparent. It bent away to right
and left, sinking to Fox and Bolter Valleys, and ultimately
narrowing to a mere ridge, at the far end of which, about
two miles away, was a broad snow peak, shutting off the
view we most desired to behold. The attraction was too
strong. With mutual consent we set forth towards the
peak. No one mentioned the rope, for who would expect
hidden crevasses in so even an area. As a matter of fact,
the place was a maze of crevasses, but the snow was so hard
that we trod through it into very few. Plodding, plodding,
plodding, the -wide white area was at length crossed to the
foot of the easy snow-ridge, where a brown patch emerged.

THE SUMMIT OF FOX PEAK.

chap, vi LOW SOUND 85
We hastened to see what vegetation it might carry, but
it was absolutely bare, and the rocks of it were weathered
to mud. On its surface were many water-rolled pebbles,
washed out from the substance in which they had been em
bedded. The single living inhabitant of the mound was a
tiny flea-like insect, captured by Garwood. He enclosed it
under his watch-glass, and it promptly took a ride round on
the second hand, but before we reached camp again it was
in minute fragments. The snow ridge stretched up ahead,
faultlessly white in a newly-fallen mantle, and with its sloping
line dividing the view per bend, argent and azure, but the
blue of the sky was faint and delicate, wholly different from
the strong dark tone observed from high elevations. Behind
spread the wondrous snow-field, so gracefully undulating, and
with the midnight sun shining brightly over it. Upon the
surface of the snow lay a brilliant rainbow, caused by the
ice-spiculse which we had noticed to be peculiarly numerous
and bright as we came along. This phenomenon was new to
both of us, nor have I ever seen it recorded. It can only
be seen when the sun is low and shines on nev6 covered
with a powdering of tiny snow crystals. The ascent of the
ridge was fortunately easy, for we had come without axes or
rope, not intending a climb. There was a big cornice to
avoid. We followed in the fresh track of a fox," who gave
his name to the peak (3180 feet).
The view that burst upon us at the top was a revelation.
All such views are revelations ; it is the quality of their
charm. We were on the watershed between Advent Bay
and Bell Sound. Plough Glacier was at our feet,1 joining
into Dreary Valley, which led south to the larger valley of
the Shallow River and Low Sound. A sea of cloud filled
these depressions, spreading away for thirty miles or more
1 I give to places the names they afterwards received.

86 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
to a remote range of mountains, golden in the low bright
sunlight and clear soft air.
Eastward the view was limited by a series of rounded
and uninteresting snowy domes. North - west were the
splendid mountains and great glaciers of North Fjord rising
above the bed of cloud that roofed Ice Fjord and Advent
Bay. A great blue shadow plunged from our feet, and lay
on the mist. At the edge of it was a small rainbow, haloing
for each of us the shadow of his head. Sunwards the clouds
shone like the sun himself ; east and west they seemed softer
and were less brilliant ; southward they were dark and grey.
The shade temperature was several degrees below freezing,
but the sun was so warm that it made avalanches peel off
the north face of the mountain.
Study of the view around us, and of that from Bunting
Bluff, enabled us to perceive that the plans with which we
started from London must be modified, for the nature of
the country was utterly different from what coast-wise
observers had imagined. We had planned to cross Spits
bergen from east to west along two or even three lines. We
now saw that little information of value would be attainable
by that method. The whole region within view was an
intricate mountain country broken up by a maze of valleys
and not containing any large level areas. To strike a mere
line or two across it would be an ineffectual method of
investigation. A closer study of some specimen area was
required, and this could only be accomplished by making a
series of expeditions to right and left, and by ascending to a
number of points of view — a process involving much expendi
ture of time and a slower rate of progress.
With minds at ease, and a rich harvest of observation, we
set forth to return. The rainbow on the snow-field was now
before us. Sometimes the bending of the nev6 brought its
apex within a few yards of our feet, so that the particular

chap, vi LOW SOUND 87
gems of ice could be identified that rendered up each tone
of colour. It was as though we were in presence of some
great goddess of old time, whose head was the radiant sun,
and her necklace of countless rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.
Her robe of snowy samite was sewn all over with diamonds,
and her veil was the gossamer mist that lay along the valley.
At three a.m. (26th), we were back at Bunting Bluff, and the
cloud-bed was just below us. A midge buzzed about and found
a final resting-place in a test-tube. The sun was so hot that
we lay on the stones and dozed in the genial warmth, but
hunger prompted a return to camp. Unwilling to descend
by the rotten arete, we bore away west into fog, down a
snow ridge where it broadened out to featureless slopes.
White snow and white fog were the sole things visible. They
melted into one another without dividing line. When the
slope became rotten and steep, we bore away to the left and
lost all knowledge of our position, save that the camp was
somewhere to the north. The compass led down an easy
gradient, and presently we found ourselves on a glacier, dis
charging down a steep gully — the second we crossed on the
way up. Here at last was water. Long and deep were the
draughts of it that I swallowed. Then down again, with here and
there a short glissade, and so out on to the easy slopes where
the old tracks were rejoined. Camp was reached at five A.M.
Supper followed, and as usual took a terribly long time to pre
pare in our cramped quarters. By eight A.M. we were wooing
sleep, and the cloud-roof was above our heads, dense as ever.
It was after two p.m. when we turned out. The day for me
was to be a busy one in camp. The map materials required
to be immediately worked up, there were journals to be
written, and a letter for our comrades at Advent Point Camp,
with a final list of things required for the inland journey and
a definite plan formulated. Pedersen went off with pony and
sledge to fetch the carcasses of his reindeer. Garwood had

88 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
an important geological problem to work out on the slopes of
Bunting Bluff. I remained alone in the chilly camp, blowing
on my fingers and writing] by turns, with only the undulating
bog before me sloping up to snow patches and a low roof
of cloud. The snow was melting with great rapidity at low
levels. When the low snow is gone the bogs begin to dry,
and the snow bogs at all events, which are the worst, utterly
disappear. Thus conditions improve for inland travel, for
which the month of June is probably too early. Such at all
events was Pedersen's opinion, delivered to me when he
returned with his reindeer, and related how he had fallen into
a river from its snow bank, and was drenched through from
chest downwards.
Many possible plans were discussed between Garwood
and me. It was certain that Low Sound could not be
reached by the ponies. Moreover, they must go down and
take the sledges to be mended. If two days' wear and
tear had so thinned the ski-runners, two more days would
finish them. Back therefore they must be sent to have thick
planks fastened under them. This would take three or four
days, which Garwood and I might employ on a knapsack
expedition, a thing freely undertakable when there is no
possibility of being benighted, and one can sleep on the first
dry patch when the sun shines.
After long deliberation a plan was evolved and a letter
written to Gregory embodying it, and detailing the supplies
required. We had discovered that it was a quicker matter,
involving less expenditure of spirit, to broil reindeer in
butter than to cook any of the concentrated rations. With
plenty of spirit and butter one could therefore live well,
and the balance of our stores required corresponding read
justment. As I worked all day at these and other matters, I de
rived much diversion from the proceedings of a purple-

chap, vi LOW SOUND 89
sandpiper hen, whose nest was only a few yards away. It
was hard to find, owing to its bare simplicity. She had
availed herself of a crack in the moss, and had just dropped
her four eggs point downwards into the hole ; there was
neither packing nor embellishment. When any one ap
proached her place she would run away, looking almost
like < a rat, then flutter feebly along as though broken-
winged. Having thus drawn off the intruder, away she
went with a laughing chuckle.1 Two skuas evidently had
business near the camp, for they kept flying slowly round
it, often swooping within a couple of yards of my head.
I was also visited by_ three glaucous gulls and a ptarmigan,
so that with the ponies to look after I was anything but
lonely. About ten P.M. Garwood came in sight as a tiny
point descending from the clouds down a distant snow
slope. I immediately set hand to the cooking of a monu
mental repast of tea, mulligatawny soup, and grilled rein
deer, with biscuits and jam to follow. The whole was
ready when he came into camp, bulging and burdened
down with fossils from the beds we traversed on the pre
vious day. He had an interesting story to tell as we sat
at supper in the door of the little tent.
In the afternoon of the 27th, Pedersen left with the
ponies and reindeer carcasses for Advent Point. Garwood
and I shouldered our knapsacks likewise, and set forth in
the opposite direction. We carried an oilskin coat, change
of stockings, an extra wrap each, a small tin of Emergency
Food, thirty-four biscuits, some lime-juice nodules, four oz.
of jam, two sticks of chocolate, a rope, matches, tobacco,
pipes, snow-goggles, prismatic compass, aneroid, thermo
meter, and camera. Taking our ice-axes from the tent, and
leaving it an amorphous mass on the ground, we turned
1 We built a little stone man by the nest, and she soon grew accustomed to our
visits, and would let us approach within a yard to watch her.

90 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
up Fox Valley, following at first our old tracks. A quarter
of a mile had not been passed before a reindeer was over
taken, a noble fellow with a grand pair of horns, not in
velvet. He could have been stalked easily, and as it was,
we almost came within range of him. Continuing along
the west bank, we gained the foot of the glacier at the
head of the valley in about an hour of bog-walking and
debris-stumbling. This, the Fox Glacier, is fed by a considerable cirque
of neve, which stretches back to the west as far as the
arete by which we mounted Fox Peak. It divides into
two branches, and there is a col at the head of each, one
adjacent to Fox Peak, the other and lower more to the
east, and visible from Cairn Camp at the apparent head of
the valley. We chose the higher col as more direct, and
named it Fox Pass. The route led up what seemed to be
neve, but proper glacier ice presently emerged. We had
not yet learnt that there are no true neves in Spitsbergen.
A batch of ice-crevasses smothered in snow gave some
trouble. We turned most of them by bearing up the slope
of the peak between the two cols. It was a steep slope,
but all the new snow had fallen in avalanches off the lower
part, leaving a brown edge above, which looked like a
bergschrund. The true bergschrund was, however, still
higher up. Keeping round the slope we reached our cold
and windy col (2550 feet) about a quarter to eight P.M.
Fox Peak to the west was covered with cloud ; the mound
to the east seemed a mere heap of fine debris which the
wind blew on to the snow, thereby forming dust-pyramids,
in their turn snowed over. Thus a peculiar area of mounded
and dirty snow was produced, the like of which we found
in other places. The view ahead was meagre in the extreme.
There was a glacier (Plough Glacier), trending down in a
WSW. direction, and there were snow mountains beyond,

chap, vi LOW SOUND 91
vaguely discerned through changing clouds. Snow fell upon
us, and the low fog thickened ; there was no temptation
to halt. Going southward at first, we reached the trough of the
glacier, then followed it down and through a mere white

DESCENDING PLOUGH GLACIER IN FOG.

chaos. Vague rocks sometimes dimly appeared. Now and
again a curiously formed rock-splinter would be seen through
a cloud-gap standing weirdly forth from a ridge. An infinite
melancholy reigned. Fancy-engendered sounds sometimes
struck the ear, as of a dog barking, a cow lowing, and the
like, but falling stones and sighing winds were all that actually
stirred the air. Presently we were below the thickest mist

92 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
and saw further afield. The eye in its turn played tricks,
figuring, for example, men carrying loads in casual lumps of
rock, whilst the snow-outlined edge of an ancient moraine,
high up on the opposite hill-side, looked like a mountain-
canal to carry irrigation-water to Alpine meadows. The
lower we descended the more incredibly bad did the snow
become. We bore to the right off the glacier, but profited
nothing on the snow-covered slopes. In we went, up to the
knee — sometimes up to the waist. I tried crawling gingerly
on all fours, a painful mode of progression. We came upon
a surface that would just bear our weight, not stepping but
creeping along it, each foot moved forwards a few inches at
a time. For a yard or two there might be stones ; the evil
snow succeeded, less tenacious than ever. At length came
a boggy slope with two very tame reindeer on it ; it seemed
a blissful highway, and led down to a flat stony bog, im
mediately below the ice-cliff with which this glacier ends.
Garwood found much of interest to observe in the section
of glacier displayed by this snout. It was advancing with
some rapidity, not ploughing up the vegetation before it,
but simply gliding on to it. The same was the case with
other glacier snouts seen this day. All were advancing in
the same fashion. Garwood climbed right up to the ice
precipice in his eagerness, risking his life in the cause of
science. I was glad when he returned and we could eat
our Emergency Food at a safe distance.
The whole area intervening between this point and the
place where the Plough Glacier's stream joins that from
Bolter Pass, was covered with reindeer tracks, and we
saw two more reindeer close at hand. They were little
disturbed by our presence, and advanced within easy range
to inspect us. For the remainder of the march we drove
them like goats before us down the valley. After halting
to take observations at the point of junction, and wading

chap, vi LOW SOUND 93
the stream from Bolter Pass, we came to what seemed
a very curious region, just below the great bulging snout
of a glacier, descending from the west, out of a large cirque
cut back into the western plateau. Before describing the
phenomenon which we here encountered for the first time, I
may take this opportunity of mentioning that all the glaciers
in Spitsbergen differ from Alpine glaciers in respect of their
appearance of viscosity. Alpine glaciers look like flowing
things when seen from suitable points of view, but Spits
bergen glaciers have a much more viscous appearance, they
bulge over and spread out at the snout as if they were made
of honey. They flow, too, down very gentle slopes, and
their surfaces are always very flat ; if curved at all from side
to side, the curvature is too slight to be noticed. Their
rate of flow may be much more rapid than that of Alpine
glaciers. This particular glacier was unusually steep, and there
fore ended in a snout of unusual height, which bulged
over in a threatening manner. At its foot was a curious
icy area, unlike anything we had ever seen below the snout
of a glacier in any part of the world. It was what we
called, and what, I believe, is already known technically as,
an ice-foot. An ice-foot is formed by the percolation of
the glacier stream through the mass of snow that accumu
lates during the winter below the glacier's foot. This snow
becomes completely sodden, and is frozen into a solid
mass of ice. Often more ice is thus formed in a year
than is melted. Later in the season we came across the
most amorphous ice-masses, which proved to be remains of
the spring ice-foot. After the ice-foot has been formed, the
glacier stream flows over it, about the time of the early
thaws, and cuts channels into it, which renewed snow-falls
block, so that they are constantly being changed. Pools are
thus made in places, and these at times freeze solid, gene-

94 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
rally in a roughly-crystalline prismatic form, the prisms stand
ing, end on, close together and opening out as the summer
proceeds, and the lateral restraint is removed by the thaw.
At first the remains of these frozen pools are seen as domes
of clear blue ice. Later, as the sides of the domes and the
interstices of the prisms melt, the rods of ice separate
from one another, and stand out like a sheaf of glittering
crystals. Of course where a glacier is forming a terminal
moraine, and is likewise advancing and retreating restlessly
from year to year, the ice-foot is mixed up with moraine
heaps, and a most chaotic distribution of ice, snow, water,
and mud results. Sometimes the ice-foot becomes buried
beneath moraine, and so kept from the summer's warmth,
when there is formed what has been well named "fossil
ice," the antiquity of which may be very great. Such fossil
ice we met with in the Sassen, Esker, and Fulmar valleys.
Here there was no such complication. At first we thought
the ice-foot was a remnant of the glacier from some former
stage of advance, upon which it was now pouring over in
renewed volume ; but the true character of the formation
presently became apparent. The largest ice-foot we saw
was below the Rabot Glacier in the Sassendal, whilst below
the great Ivory Glacier towards Agardh Bay there was
no ice-foot at all, because there was almost no river to
form one, an ice-foot being a function not of the glacier
but of the glacier stream.
So novel a phenomenon naturally interested us greatly.
We wandered away from one another in pursuit of our
investigations. It was an uncomfortable place to roam
about in at this time of year, for there were so many
water-logged snow bogs and streams full of snow, all with
a white surface of deceptively solid appearance, that it was
impossible to find even a fairly dry route across. Still
Garwood managed pretty well, and arrived at the far side

chap, vi LOW SOUND 95
tolerably dry. I was less lucky or less skilful, though I
always probed for footing with my axe, and generally found
it not more than knee-deep in the snow-slush, which for
wetness is no drier than mere water. At last I came to
what was obviously a big snow-bog or slush-pool. Creep
ing gingerly to the edge, I bent forwards and probed its
depth, expecting to find bottom not more than two feet
down. But the axe went in and in, up to, then over its
head. I could not withdraw it or myself. I perceived, in
a flash of recognition, that I was bound to follow it. To
avoid taking a header into the slush, in which it would
perhaps have been difficult to bring oneself afterwards right
way up — a truly ignominious fashion of drowning — I jumped
in, managing to turn partly round and get one hand on
the bank, thereby avoiding immersion above the neck, though
the bottom was out of my depth. To climb out again was
the work of a moment. Had I been less wet before this
adventure it would have been more disagreeable. As it was,
the incident passed with little comment. A brief interval of
sunshine that followed seemed blissful by contrast.
Moraines and ice-foot passed, we plodded along the
edge of the bog-slope that intervenes in all these valleys
between the foot of the mountains and the gully or canon
of the river. The going, bad at all times, became worse
every fifty yards or so, when a side-stream had to be crossed,
for each side-stream ran down a gully of its own, filled
with snow-bog that had to be tediously waded through.
About one A.M. (28th) we halted during a fine interval to
wring out pattis and stockings and empty the water from
our boots. Garwood unsuccessfully tried to sleep. We
were both dog tired, not with the length but with the toil-
someness of the way. Dreary Valley was very tame, with
its long brown monotonous slopes on either hand, striped
with snow-filled gullies, leading up eastward to a series of

96 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
diminishing hills, and westward to the edge of a plateau.
An enduring gloom of cloud and damp overhung and per
meated the place. Puffs of cold wind chilled the marrow
in our bones. Then rain began to fall, each drop like the
touch of an icicle. I put on my wet stockings and boots,
wound the wet pattis about them, and on we went again
over slightly better ground, where was much grass and
plenty of food for our ponies if only we could get them
over the mountains. At last we approached the mouth of
Dreary Valley, and found a grassy hollow with a clear little
brook rippling down it in tiny channels. It was the most
protected place we had thus far seen in Spitsbergen. More
over there was a small patch of dry ground, big enough
to lie on, the first square yard of dry earth we had come
across since quitting Advent Bay. Here accordingly we de
termined to rest. We were utterly weary with the labour
of the march, due to the quantity and condition of the
snow. If, as we were informed, the season this year was
a late one, we had that lateness to thank for the worst of
our troubles. In August no doubt the pass might be crossed
and the valley descended without trouble and in a very
short time.
Our camping ground, though relatively sheltered, was not
really a choice spot. It was a sloping trough about twenty
feet deep and forty wide. There were snow-walls on either
hand. Mountains protected us behind, but there was only
a low ridge in front, over which we could see the prominent
isolated mountain, whichi so attracted us as a probable point
of view when we first saw it from near Bunting Bluff. In
preparation for repose we changed our wet socks for the
dry ones from our sacks, put on our extra wraps, tied the
lappets of our Samoyede fur caps over our ears and round
our necks, then lay upon the ground back to back with
the oilskin coat about our legs, our feet in a kind of pocket

chap, vi LOW SOUND 97
it had at the top of its back, and its skirts tucked under
us for a ground sheet. Sods dug from the ground with
ice-axes formed our pillows. Water rippled past us within
arm's length. We spread our frugal meal of Emergency
tablets, biscuits, jam, and lime-juice nodules, and rejoiced at
the unlooked-for comfort. It was not long to last. Cold
puffs of wind soon found us out ; so did two ivory gulls,
which flew round and round close to our heads before
settling on the snow-beds a few feet away, and discussing
us long and minutely. Concluding that we were not yet
ready for eating they presently left. Seldom have persis
tent efforts to woo sleep been less graciously rewarded by
that fickle goddess than were ours during the time of our
stay. We dozed sometimes, but never really slumbered.
Then rain began to fall heavily. We endured it without
a murmur ; things had gone too far to be complained of,
they were past the power of words. This I will say, that
when your bones are aching and your position is so cramped
that you cannot move, and the freezing ground is sucking
away the little heat left in your frame, to be splashed in the
face with icy rain is an aggravation of discomfort big enough
to be even then perceptible.
After four or five hours' so-called rest we agreed that
it was time to be stirring. We were shivering so much
that we feared the rotten mountains in the neighbourhood
might be upset. There was no talk of eating anything.
The packs were made up and I started on. Ten minutes
later I was standing at the end of the valley and shouting
wildly to Garwood. The object of our journey was accom
plished, for the view that greeted my eyes revealed all we
had come to see. When he joined me we were able to forget
our discomforts together in the delights of discovery.
Before us lay a wide flat valley, known to hunters as the
Stordal, but originally named by the Dutch the valley of

98 SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
the Ondiepe or Shallow River, wider by far than and as flat as
Advent Vale, stretching away south-west for some miles to
Low Sound, and very gently mounting north-east a longer
distance before turning a corner with a slow wide curve
to the east. Down Low Sound we could see the purple
rocks of the Middle Hook that separates Low Sound from
Van Keulen's Bay, and farther off still the peaks of the
promontory between Schoonhoven and the sea. The Sunde-
wall Mountains were clear of clouds across the flat. Im
mediately over against us three valleys, each containing a
glacier, debouched almost together into the Ondiepe Valley.
Farther up, pouring out from the east on to the flat, was
the wide, circular-domed front of a vaster glacier, draining
a high snowy area of considerable extent. With ponies
and sledges we might now have advanced straight up the
great valley for many miles, and perhaps come within rushing
distance of the east coast. At once the thought occurred
to both of us that Bolter Pass, which we had not yet ex
plored, might be practicable for the beasts, and if it were,
the thing to do was to bring them over at once. There was
nothing to be gained by wandering about on the flat. Our
business was an immediate return.
Before setting forth we had one more good look round.
The view was worth looking at for all reasons ; to us trebly
precious for the price it had cost. No ray of direct sunlight
illumined it, no fresh green cheered it, no blue sky over
arched it. The brown flat below, just emerged from winter
snow and not yet carpeted with its summer inflorescence,
spread abroad, imposingly expansive. In my experience all
wide views over new country suddenly revealed, produce on
the beholder, at first glance, the same exaggerated impression
of extent. You feel the size of the thing more than aught
else about it. The relative smallness of the snowy mountains,
to one accustomed to associate glaciers with high altitudes,

chap, vi LOW SOUND 99
added in our case to this effect of breadth. Cold looked the
snows, enormous the great glacier snout in front, mysterious
the slow bend of the great valley, and the tantalising secret
of the hidden regions behind. Could we but climb Stortind
on a fine day these would all be revealed. We noted it as
a point more than ever worthy of attainment. Garwood
took a round of photographs, I of compass bearings ; then
we turned our backs on the scene and set forward to return.
One thing we agreed upon ; we would not follow our
old tracks. I went down to the immediate margin of the
stream, and found good ice overhanging the torrent, but
strong enough to bear. Along this progress was easy. Gar
wood climbed high up the hill-side to the level of the old
moraine, where also he got on well enough. The result was
a divergence too wide to be advisable in such a remote
region, so I presently climbed up to him, and we journeyed
on together. It is needless to recount the details of the
way. We had less snow bog to wade through, but more
laborious work of other sorts, for we struck the great ter
minal moraines of the glacier we passed the previous day too
high up, and had to mount and descend over them, then to
come down just under the snout, reascend the big moraine
on the farther side, again descending to a slushy snow flat,
where all the worst features of the previous day's struggles
were renewed. There was much survey work to be done,
and many observations to be made. We were weary, and
our backs protested against their loads. Feet, sodden for
long hours, became tender. The pace grew slower and
slower. About two p.m. we reached Bolter Pass (1340 feet),
and saw far away to the north the site of Bolter Camp.
We were regretfully driven to acknowledge that ponies
could not be dragged over this route till quite late in the
season, if then. Possibly it may never be practicable for
them. We were too tired to be much disappointed. Indeed,

ioo SPITSBERGEN chap, vi
the certainty that this way would not have to be retraced
was for the moment a distinct pleasure.
The descent led down waist-deep snow to a large open
space, soon revealed as a lake of snow slush, quite im
passable. It was turned with difficulty above its head by
wading through rivers of a nameless compound neither
solid nor liquid, neither ice, water, nor snow, but which
possessed the qualities of being as wet as water, as cold as
ice, and, whilst offering no support to the tread, opposing a
deadly heavy obstruction to the advancing foot. Below the
snow-lake was another smaller one, both in the midst of a
white wilderness, and below that the floor of Bolter Valley.
Two glaciers debouch into it, on a common ice-foot. That
from the west leads up to the plateau, and by it a way could
be found to the valley of Coles Bay. The other, named
Rieper Glacier by Garwood (for purposes of geological
reference), drains the north-westerly part of the Fox Plateau.
Its great snout was of the normal form in these parts, rounded
both vertically and horizontally, and apparently advancing.
There were recently deposited beds of boulder-clay before
it, which instantly attracted the attention of us both.
The interesting phenomena of the Rieper Glacier's snout,
coupled, perhaps, with a sub-consciousness of the horrible
nature of the remainder of the walk, conspired to keep us
long delaying. When we set forward it was with the deter
mination of getting back to the tent as soon as possible.
Doggedly we plodded down the right bank of Bolter Valley,
then round the end of it over a boggy shoulder to the sledge
tracks of our former way. A pair of ptarmigan close at
hand were so well aware of our feeble condition that they
let us come within three yards of them. One would have
made a welcome dish for supper ; I heaved stones at it,
but so feebly that it merely hopped aside and let me go on
heaving till I was ready to drop. There was less snow by

chap, vi LOW SOUND 101
far than when we were here before, but as many bogs and
even more water to wade through. Little recked we of wet.
Not a word did we speak, but just plodded on, passing the
foot of gully after gully, and wondering when the last would
come. Two more ptarmigan treated me as the others had
done. I knocked some feathers out of one with my ice-axe,
but could not catch him. In this country a second-rate
archer might have good sport. Birds and reindeer are just
tame enough for such a person to stalk with some chance
of success. At eight o'clock the last slope was mounted, and the
green tent lay as we left it. Nothing was changed but the
wind. A fatal mutation ! involving the repitching of the
tent, for it would be blown away unless its door were leeward.
The pegs, so securely planted, had to be hauled up, every
article of baggage to be drawn forth, everything moved and
re-arranged. It was half-an-hour's work, performed by both
in a silence as complete as it was full of meaning. The
cooking apparatus and stores were gathered before the door.
Then at last we could doff our wet nether garments, plunge
up to the knees in the warm reindeer-skin bags, and take supper
in hand. O hot ration-cartridges, red, blue, or of whatever
colour ! O succulent cocoa, and slowly uncondensing milk,
and ye, O Reading biscuits, covered with butter and brown
sugar ! — long will the memory of you abide in the thankful
bosoms of two famished bogfarers. The times of our going
to sleep and of our next day's rising were not recorded.

AN INLAND CAMP.

CHAPTER VII

ADVENT VALE TO THE SASSENDAL

IT is perhaps needless to say that the morrow after the
laborious expedition recorded in the previous chapter
Avas a day of rest and writing, for there was much to be
written up and plotted in. Hour after hour the wind howled
and the tent boomed and blustered, but there was no low
fog, so that as we sat on the tent floor we could always see
the fjord, here steel-grey where ice covered it, there blue or
purple in the changing lights, whilst the slopes and bogs that
framed it in, now almost bare of snow, displayed a richness
of dark tones not easily surpassed. The sight of Advent
Point served to remind us how short was the distance inland
thus far covered. If the severe labour we had undergone had
only brought us thus far, how difficult would be the task of
crossing the island even at its narrowest neck !
With evening came a downpour of torrential rain, to the
amazement and disgust of Garwood, who had withdrawn to
the retirement of his sleeping-bag whilst some of his things
were out for an airing. Either they or he must be soused—
a miserable alternative. How the rain rattled on the tent,

ON the way to sassen bay.

chap, vii THE SASSENDAL 103
driven by the wind ! Who, I wonder, told us that rain
seldom falls in the summer in Spitsbergen, and then only
slightly and with little wind ? The same person perhaps who
said that there were no rivers in the island ! As the hours
advanced the storm became ever worse, but it manifested
the excellence of our little tent, which neither bowed before
the gale nor let the rain through. For their credit let me
here record that it was manufactured by the Military Equip
ment Stores.
In the midst of our first slumber that night, we were
aroused to consciousness by a voice without, and, looking
forth, beheld Gregory standing alone in the midst of a
universe reeking with wet. Water ran off him in cascades
from all points. He said the others were near at hand.
Trevor-Battye and Pedersen presently appeared with the
ponies and lightly-laden sledges, having come straight through
from Advent Point, in the very midst and fury of the
opposing storm. Trevor-Battye had come to pay a call and
discuss plans. He made light of his discomforts and only
craved a little food before setting forth on his return, being
too wet to remain without bedding or change. He sat in
the tent door, patiently eating his ration, and agreed to come
round by boat to Sassen Bay in four days' time and meet
us there, weather and ice permitting. As a matter of fact
weather and ice did not permit. What actually happened
was as follows. The gale then blowing carried the heavy
East Coast ice up the west coast of Spitsbergen. Next day
the fickle wind changed and blew this ice into Ice Fjord,
packing the mouth of Advent and Sassen Bays. Day after
day the procession of ice-floes continued, and no boat could
make head against the wind or find a way through the packed
ice to come at Sassen Bay, though various attempts were
made. At last on the 6th they were able to leave — Trevor-
Battye, H. E. Conway, and a sailor. A day's work carried

io4 SPITSBERGEN chap, vii
them through large floating ice blocks to the mouth of De Geer
Valley, where they met the Swedes, who had recently shot
a polar bear on a floe, and had caught three young foxes
on Goose Island. They presently put forth again and rowed
on, worming their way with much difficulty and some danger
through the ice, and so, at ten A.M. on the 7th, they gained
Starvation Bluff, and there met our man Pedersen and
established communications with us.
To return, however, to the affairs of the moment. Trevor-
Battye and Gregory had brought up the two sledges, but
there had been only time to mend one of them. The other
was in a parlous state. I would willingly have waited two
more days for the work to have been properly done, but
Trevor-Battye thought that speed was the essence of our
needs, and acted accordingly with the best intentions. The
result was unfortunate, but no one was to blame. We had
to push on with such machines as were available, and the
two new sledges must come round by boat to meet us at
Sassen Bay. Trevor-Battye presently said good-bye and
went forth into the rain. We tucked Gregory into a bag be
tween us, and Pedersen pitched the second tent close by.
The Advent Bay news was interesting. Mr. Arnold Pike's
yacht had come in from the north, with tidings that the
year was an unusually open one. The ice had disappeared
to a high latitude ; the sea was open as far as the Seven
Islands and perhaps yet farther east. A school of white
whales had visited Advent Point, and Studley shot four of
them and felt better. Svensen's walrus-sloop also came in
and took Studley and Trevor-Battye for a cruise over to
Cape Boheman. The day we climbed Fox Peak, Gregory
ascended the bluff above Advent Point and had a glorious
view. When we turned out the rain had passed, and the cloud-
mantle resumed its usual spread and level. I packed one

ADVENT VALE FROM CAIRN CAMP.

chap, vii THE SASSENDAL 105
sledge and set forth with the plane-table, the others following
an hour later, Pedersen driving one sledge and Garwood
the second. Our party, thus constituted, was an ideal one.
Gregory was quite well again, and gave us the benefit of
his boundless energy, his alert observation, and his wide
experience. Garwood was not a whit behind him in every
virtue a traveller can possess. Henceforward, with a self-
sacrifice I can never forget, he undertook the abominable
work of driving one of the sledges, so that I might be always
free to go ahead, aside, or to linger behind for surveying
purposes. It was Garwood, too, who did the cooking for us,
and a thousand and one other details of camp-work that
would have been less efficiently done by any one else.
Pedersen was of little use in camp, but, when we afterwards
exchanged him for the other man, we were even less well
served. On descending from camp to the plain, the many streams
from Fox Valley had to be waded immediately. An almost
level stony area followed, the best walking we found in
Spitsbergen, for the ground was firm and fairly smooth.
Below the wide long fan came the flat land, occupying the
bed of what was once Advent Bay. This I traversed to its
head, where is still the old bank curving all around. I
climbed a hump, previously selected for plane-table station,
and gazed abroad on the dismal prospect. Clouds, of course,
disguised the peaks, but here and there a point was visible
through some momentary gap, so that useful work could
be accomplished. The others were far away like tiny ants
working at the sledges, which began to move just as I set
forward once more.
The upper part of Advent Vale was soon to be revealed
to me, and expectation stimulated advance. On the left
flowed the river, no inconsiderable flood, over the flat bottom
of a gorge whence long bog-slopes rose on either hand

106 SPITSBERGEN chap, vii
into cloud. A fold of the ground hid all the area that had
become so familiar to us during the last few days. I was
absolutely alone in a new world, hitherto seen only by
occasional reindeer hunters. Under such circumstances the
dullest imagination should be quickened. Nowhere was
there trace of man. Abundance of reindeer horns lay about,
and the tracks of reindeer were in all directions, but not
a footprint of man or of any domestic animal could be
descried. Wild birds flew about me inquisitively, flocks
of geese honked at me as I moved forward. The scenery
was, in fact, tame and dull, but circumstances invested it
with a strange prestige. Its rich purple tones, its wide-
expanding forms, its suggestive peeps of cloud-enveloped
crags, sufficed to quicken the fancy, so that I walked along
in the bleak dull day as in a dream, full of a nameless and
indescribable delight. Work involved frequent halts, for the
bend of the valley closed out known points and opened
new ones that had to be linked to the old before the oppor
tunity was lost. Thus the others came up with me in course
of time, all wet to the knees like myself, and we could
indulge in a little common complaint. The ponies were tired
after their long march the day before, and they too com
plained, though the route had continued unusually good.
A mound of ancient moraine here stood in the midst of
the valley. Evidently it must have been formed by a glacier,
which once descended the large side-valley from the north,
whose mouth we presently opened. If the clouds had been
less thick and low we should doubtless have noticed the
importance of this depression, but it was only a month later,
when we looked down upon its head from the top of Mount
Lusitania, that we discovered it to be the end of a deep
trough, cutting through the mountains from Ice Fjord, and
dividing into two almost equal parts the mountain group
between Advent Vale, the Sassendal, and the fjord. Any one

chap, vii THE SASSENDAL 107
ascending De Geer Valley, and crossing the low pass at its
head, would come out at this point into the upper part of
Advent Vale.
When the valley opened out once more there were
gullies to be crossed, some wide and with steep or even
precipitous sides. Long detours and much uphill work was
involved, we fell into bogs and snow-beds again, and prog
ress was difficult and slow. At last a gully, bigger than
all the others, caused protracted delay and labour. When
it was crossed we had to halt for the ponies' sake, though
the position was abominable for a camp, and the march
had been short. It was one a.m. There was not a yard
of dry ground, neither was there any clear water. The
earth was formed of dirtv black debris, damply compacted
with moss into an oozy bog, which spread afar over the
sloping face of the hill. One spot was about as bad as
another, so we halted near a muddy trickle of water and
pitched Black Ooze Camp (530 feet) on spongy ground, that
squdged wherever we trod, and quickly evolved puddles
from our footprints. On the opposite side of the valley
reindeer were visible, so after supper Pedersen went forth
for meat. He saw about a score during a short stalk, and
brought down two of them — a welcome addition to our
supplies, though one would have sufficed. The ordinary
business of camp closed the day.
We had by this time settled down into camp-life routine.
At first the smallness of the tents was a constant annoyance,
and we were used neither to the sledges nor to the cooking
apparatus. Now we, or rather Garwood, cooked with
promptitude, not to say elaboration. Variations upon the
sameness of the earlier menu were devised. Reindeer and
ptarmigan ousted ration-cartridges from the pot. We grew
fat instead of lean, and only the ponies suffered from short
commons. Camps were pitched and struck with rapidity ;

108 SPITSBERGEN chap, vii
sledges almost loaded themselves and required far fewer
ropes to bind them than at first. The open-air life invigorated
our frames ; hearts beat strongly, and we could defy cold
with impunity, neither did we dread the constant wettings
we had to undergo. We even became used to the bad
weather, and ceased to repine that a blanket of cloud kept
sunshine from us save at rare intervals.
At four p.m., July i, I left the oozy and uncomfortable
camp and climbed a rounded and unattractive knoll (834 feet)
behind it, a mass of bare debris, standing in the midst of
the valley, and likely to command a serviceable view for
topographical purposes. Cold blew the wind over the level
top. Clouds covered all the larger hills, but I was able
to look far up the valley to its final branching, and to mark
the situation of two cols leading over into the Sassendal.
Gregory and Garwood presently followed, their cries re
vealing from afar that they had discovered fossils. Frozen
to the bones, when my own work was done, I joined them,
and, borrowing Gregory's hammer, went to work stone-
breaking to warm myself. The fossils came forth by dozens.
It was as amusing as catching fish, though in this also
experts had the best of it. I smashed away, and found
only bad specimens, whilst rare treasures leapt forth to
their lightest taps.
Leaving them thus well employed, I returned to strike
my tent and pack a sledge, then set forward up the main
valley, not as before across the bog slopes, but down on
the flat stony bottom of the shallow river gorge.1 Knowing
how many times water would have to be crossed by this
route, I foolishly wore long rubber boots, which kept the
feet dry indeed, but drew them to lameness. It was possible
now to advance rapidly, for there were either reasonably
1 The altitude of the river-bed below Ooze Camp was 327 ft. above sea level.

THE BALDHEAD FROM BRENT PASS.

1-/

STUCK IN A SNOW-BOG.

chap, vii THE SASSENDAL 109
hard stone-flats or equally level marginal ice-beds to go on.
Good progress was therefore made, and in an hour I was
standing where the valley broadens out to a great basin, and
a long wide view can be obtained. I climbed the bank and
gazed around with real delight. Far away in the sombre
purple distance were the hills behind Advent Bay. In the
opposite direction, across a mile of grey stone-flat, cut up
by scores of streams (all to be crossed by us), lay our
pass to the Sassendal, clearly visible and of easy access — a
wide low opening in the hills. The main valley wound
gently up to the SW. between hill-sides striped with melting
snow-beds. But the striking feature of the view was farther
round to the south, where the huge cliff-fronted and serac'd
snout of a glacier swept forth from a deep blue cloud-
enveloped valley. The ice-cliff, appearing thus literally
from the clouds, produced • a most impressive effect. It
thundered forth at frequent intervals, when masses of ice fell
from it, so we named it Booming Glacier. Gregory, who
came up at this moment, was so taken by it that he set out
for a nearer view, whilst I levelled the plane-table to secure
some observations before the dark storm rushing up the
valley rendered work impossible.
When Garwood came by with the sledges, we began
crossing the streams. The mended sledge went bravely
through, but we watched the other in fear and trembling,
for one of its runners was worn almost as thin as paper
and evidently would not hold out much longer. It waved
and twisted over and about the stones, but for this time
also did not break. At the far side was a bank of snow-
bog to be climbed, wherein the ponies floundered up to
the withers. Spitz set knowingly to work, prodding with
her fore-feet to beat down the snow, and when she found
it too deep, refusing to advance till I had gone before and
trodden a broad deep furrow. Thus we came safe to land

no SPITSBERGEN chap, vii
on a dry bank almost level with the col, which we named
Brent Pass, from the flocks of geese that kept flying over it.
The ponies arrived fairly famished, for there had been
no grazing worth mention at Ooze Camp, and we were
carrying no hay. Thus far Bergen had been cock of the
caravan. Now, over their feed of oats, Spits resisted his
supremacy, and a fine squabble arose. Kicks were freely
exchanged, and what sounded like equine abuse. Before
they could be interfered with, Bergen so definitely got the
worst of it that he always knuckled under in future, letting
Spits deprive him of the remainder of his oats, or any
succulent morsel she might find him devouring, if no one
was by to see fair-play.
The geologists went to investigate Booming Glacier next
day, and found its sides as steep and almost as inaccessible
as its front. The ice-stream bulges and cracks all round its
edge and up both sides apparently for miles. With difficulty
and some danger they climbed on to it, returning even
more learned than they went. So fascinated was Garwood
with what he saw that he returned three weeks later to
Brent Pass, and climbed the peak (2868 feet) above the left
bank of the glacier, which in its turn is separated by another
glacier from the wider mountain that rose immediately
opposite to our camp, to which we gave the name Baldhead.
The group of peaks that surround Booming Glacier is the
culminating mountain mass between Advent Vale and the
valley of the Shallow River. If it had not been for our
appointment to meet Trevor-Battye at Sassen Bay, we should
have spent two days here for the purpose of exploring the
head of the glacier.
I spent the day on the opposite slopes. Two reindeer
at one time visited me, looking, running away, returning,
running away once more, and so on for half-an-hour. Later,
I walked over Brent Pass (450 feet) to discover the best way

THE SNOUT OF BOOMING GLACIER — BRENT PASS IN THE DISTANCE.

chap, vii THE SASSENDAL nr
for the ponies, and decided on following the right bank.
The actual pass is wide and swampy. A stream, descending
from the hill on the north, divides and sends one branch
down Advent Vale, the other to the Sassendal, clearly an
unstable arrangement. Formerly this stream went wholly
down Advent Vale. Soon all its waters will have been
robbed for the Sassendal by the backward creeping Esker
Valley. The watershed between Advent Vale and the Sas
sendal used to be close to the left bank of the latter. The
Esker Valley was one, though not the longest, of the upper
branches of Advent Vale. In a manner to be presently
described the old head of the Esker Valley was cut down
and became its mouth, and the slope of the valley has
gradually been turned the other way. The process of eating
back is steadily continuing. Brent Pass will be eaten away,
and the Advent River will suffer a further diminution
of its head-waters, for its main upper tributary will be
taken from it, and the pass will then be situated at the
foot of the Baldhead. The process may even go farther,
and the ultimate position of the watershed may be at the
narrow place just above what was formerly the head of
Advent Bay.
There was no distant view from the pass because of
clouds, which hung low in all directions, yet the scenery
was invested with no little dignity by its long sweeping
lines, its simple forms and sombre colouring, seen through
the thick wet air. The broad bases of the hills seemed to
imply vast mountains rising from them within the clouds ;
these the imagination easily supplied. How an ancient
Greek poet might have filled such a scene with gods and
mighty heroes aloof from little men ! Across such country
Hercules might stalk at large and seem in place, or hither
might come mysterious divinities not to be approached or
beheld of human eye save after awful initiations. Alas for

ii2 SPITSBERGEN chap, vii
the age of science ! The hills were a topographical puzzle
for us, and their story a geological enigma.
In the afternoon of July 3 we awoke to find the sun
pallidly shining on the bleak hills, through a sky beautiful
with various layers of cloud up to a serene bed of
delicate cirrus. Cold draughts blew over the pass, and
there was a thick cloud-bank beyond, but the omens were
at last fair, and Baldhead Peak was mainly uncovered, whilst
up Booming Glacier were tantalising peeps of deep-lying
snow-fields and other perplexing forms. The first work
was to patch up the sledges, one of which was in a parlous
state, its runners reduced to mere paper, hopelessly frail.
Whilst this was in hand — or, to be accurate, in Gregory's
skilful hands — glaucous gulls flew around, and inquisitive
long-tailed skuas hovered only a few feet overhead. Food had
been found for the ponies, who were thankfully absorbing
it, after two days' uncommonly short commons, or rolling on
the moss and mud in joyous relaxation.
Encouraged by the opening prospects, I set forward to
work, crossing the pass, and almost immediately losing sight
of Advent Vale. The scenery was utterly tame, bogs below,
then gentle rounded slopes leading up into clouds, which,
however, hid no crags or diversified sky-line, as we after
wards discovered. Only the Baldhead kept showing behind,
as though peering to see us safely out of his solitude.
Five grating geese kept in attendance ; their throats
needed oiling. Then two reindeer came and looked at me,
and being puzzled came nearer to within about forty yards.
They were asinine-looking beasts, with an awkward waddle
in their going and a grunt for voice. Finding me dull, they
fed awhile, then made for the river. The snow-bog bank
was rotten. The leader, sinking into it up to the neck,
returned and tried another place, where was an ice-cornice,
which broke under him, and let him in up to the neck again,

LOOKING DOWN THE SASSENDAL.

chap, vii THE SASSENDAL 113
this time in the river. Between swimming and wading both
crossed, shook themselves like dogs on the farther bank,
and trotted off up hill. These reindeer have been shot
enough to be made shy, but they are essentially stupid
beasts, and if Spitsbergen is much hunted they will soon
be almost exterminated. I saw many more, and so, unfor
tunately, did Pedersen, who cannot restrain himself from
shooting at them, even though they are not wanted for
food. He is not a good shot, and this day he was specially
unfortunate. Having stalked two deer and come within
forty yards of them, he kneeled down and elaborately aimed.
The recoil of the rifle sent him over on his back, and no
harm was done ; the stupid deer wondered at the noise, and
came close to see the cause. Pedersen missed them again,
but brought one down by a long shot at a range of about
two hundred yards — a useless slaughter, as will be seen.
My march was a solitary one down the mournful Esker
Valley, but it was not without interest. The very loneliness
and weirdness of the scenery gave it a charm. Had Sir
Palamedes lit on this place, assuredly he would have believed
that the Questing Beast was nigh. On I went, plunging and
wading slowly downward. Perceiving that the exit into the
Sassendal was near at hand, I hastened forward, ascended
a bare and muddy mound, and lo ! the broad valley, and to
the north a bright line, the ice-encumbered waters of Sassen
Bay. Across the valley was the Colorado Berg, a long low
hill, extraordinarily flat-topped and tame, seamed by snow
couloirs, one of which, with its branches, mimicked the form
of an Assyrian bas-relief. Here was clearly the place for
camp if the ponies had come down this bank ; there was
nothing to be gained by descending the last low boggy slope
to the yet boggier flat of the valley. Long I sat gazing at
the view and shivering. It was not without its fine elements.
Best was the glimpse of Sassen Bay, with the purple wall

"4 SPITSBERGEN chap, vii
of Temple Mountain beyond. The head of the Sassendal,
of course, attracted my most anxious attention, for thither
lay the route to the East Coast, a portion of which was
traversed by M. Rabot in 1892. The bluff he climbed and
named Pic Milne-Edwards was in sight, and so was a wide
and gentle glacier, stretching back eastward with slow ascent
to a flat white sky-line. I named it Rabot Glacier.
In the faint sounds that fluttered the air it was surpris
ing to detect a deep bass note, giving volume to the treble
ripplings of brooks down the hill-sides, and of the main
stream hurrying over stones or washing against its snowy
banks. A brief search revealed the cause. The river at its
exit from Esker Valley passes through a gorge, cut into the
carboniferous limestone which here forms the foundation
of the triassic hills. At one point it has to tumble over a
wall of rock about fifty feet high. Over it goes at a level
edge, in a single plunge, a plain unbroken fall of brown
water, straight sided, foam footed, a cascade in its simplest
form. It tumbles into a wall-sided caldron, and winds away
below a few jutting promontories, which form excellent points
of view, and were chosen for nesting-places by a colony of
pink-footed geese. The scene is admirably harmonious in
its dreary simplicity and sombre remoteness ; even the muddi-
ness of the water is better in keeping with the surroundings
than clear water would be. It is a small waterfall ; later in
the season when the snow had done melting it would be
smaller, but it was my own. No one had ever seen it
before, except perhaps some stray hunter. It was mine to
name and to enjoy, which I did with trembling, for the wind
was cold and there was no shelter.
The hours passed and no one came. Knowing that the
march would be a hard one for the sledges, I now began
to fear lest some misfortune had happened. The reports of
Pedersen's rifle at last relieved me. Then Gregory came in

CAULDRON WATERFALL.

CHAP. VII

THE SASSENDAL

IJ5

with tales of the difficulties surpassed — how Garwood's pony
had been bogged and the other had to be brought to haul
him out ; how the sledges were only just holding together,
how in descending the right bank they were forced into a
cut de sac, with a high bank overhanging the river on one
side, and a slope of snow too steep to be traversed on the
other ; how in fording the river the sledges were rolled over
and carried away, and they themselves with difficulty retained
their footing, and how they were all dripping wet and as
hungry as I was. After midnight the caravan arrived, and
Waterfall Camp (105 feet) was pitched on a dry spot com
manding a wide view.

'""v ~&

DR. GREGORY.

ON THE TOP OF STICKY KEEP.

CHAPTER VIII
THE ASCENT OF STICKY KEEP
SUN brightly shining on the tent, and air, in consequence,
stuffy within, were the unarctic conditions that aroused
us from slumber, early, but not early enough to prevent
the headache which sunshine on a closed tent is so liable
to cause. Perhaps this was why all felt lazy. The attack
soon passed off, and by two o'clock p.m. we were ready
for our tasks. Gregory went off with the wrecked sledges,
expecting to find Battye and a boat at Sassen Bay. If all
went well he was to load the ruined sledges into the boat
and take them to Advent Bay, to be sent thence to Tromso
or Hammerfest for repairs. He was to return at once with
the other two sledges that had not yet been used, and these,
it was hoped, would take our things safely across the island
Delay being thus imposed upon us, it
116

to Agardh Bay.

1;

<*Jrxfl££4L. l*U ^Zyyil '.-yt yf. "¦

Ice-foot at Cape Waern

BOOMING GLACIER, THE BALDHEAD, AND FOX

PEAK FROM STICKY KEEP.

chap, viii STICKY KEEP 117
was not surprising that fine weather should at last set in.
Pedersen went down with Gregory, and Garwood and I
were left alone.
The obvious thing for us to do was to climb the hill
behind camp. It has been said that the opposite or east
side of the Sassendal is bordered by the remarkably uniform
face of the Colorado Hills, which is only broken by one or
two insignificant valleys, or rather canons. The west side of
the Sassendal, on the contrary, is entered by a whole series of
side valleys of considerable size. Delta Valley, the nearest
to Sassen Bay, gives access to Advent Vale by a pass which
descends almost on to the top of Brent Pass. The second
side valley is the Esker, at whose mouth we were encamped.
The third leads by a pass to the upper branch of Advent
Vale. The fourth is Fulmar Valley, by which we went to
the Ivory Gate, and Agardh Bay. Between each of these
valleys and its neighbour is a jutting mountain front or
bluff. The first of these is Mount Marmier, above Sassen
Bay ; the second is the bluff we climbed and named Sticky
Keep ; the third protrudes three bluffs towards the Sassendal,
and was named by us the Trident ; the fourth is the bluff
climbed by M. Rabot, and named Mount Milne-Edwards.
We set forth to ascend Sticky Keep, Garwood taking
hammer and camera, I the everlasting plane-table and its
irritating and needlessly bulky legs. There was no climbing
on the peak, but a great deal of miscellaneous steep uphill
walking, all toilsome and disgusting in various ways. To
begin was a slope of smooth hardish mud, about noo feet
high, a featureless steep incline, seamed with a few shallow
snow gullies, but otherwise the same from side to side
and from top to bottom. On this Garwood and I parted
company. Above it came a large plateau, as it were paved
with flagstones falling into decay, the very semblance of
some ancient ruin, which it was hard to believe the mere

"8 SPITSBERGEN chap, viii
work of nature both in structure and decay. The peak was
seen rising beyond in a series of steps, like the keep of a
castle within the enceinte, or like the storeys of some Chaldaean
Ziggurat, rotting back to their original mud by the banks
of Tigris or Euphrates. The way led over sticky mud, into
which one sank ankle-deep, the mud flowing over the foot
and adhering to the boot, dragging it back both by weight
and suction. Other paved parapets succeeded and other
staged ascents, over slopes of broken stone so steep that it
was marvellous they did not fall in one great avalanche.
The mud that compacted them made the steepness of the
slope possible. The foot behind slid back as the other was
raised. It was a toilsome task to go on advancing, and
withal a thirsty, for there was little water bv the way, and
all of it muddy. At last the fifth shoulder was passed and
the summit gained (2185 feet) — not a peak, but an undulat
ing area of an acre or more, part snow-covered, part like a
ploughed clay-field after heavy rain.
North-eastward, a cliff fell away to the Sassendal ; on
the other side were long slopes of snow and a round-backed
ridge, trending toward Brent Pass. It was a poor mountain,
but the view from it was by no means poor, and in the
clear sunlight, below the soft blue sky whisked over with
cirrous clouds, the snowy regions all around shone through
the mellowing atmosphere, glorious in the splendour of the
silver world. Far below spread Ice Fjord, with Sassen Bay
in front, and the mouths of Temple, Klass Billen, and
Nord Bays all discernible. Blue were the waters, with
threads and areas of white ice interlacing over them, and
keeping the surface so calm that the mountains beyond
were clearly mirrored back. Bluer still, incredibly blue,
were the dark rocks of Temple Mountain and the cliff-
fronted neighbouring peaks. In the warmer distance were
the great glaciers of Cape Boheman and the maze of peaks

FROM STICKY KEEP LOOKING ACROSS THE S\SSENDAL TO
THE COLORADO PLATEAU.

chap, viii STICKY KEEP

i 19

which divide them ; Mount Marmier, near at hand, cut off
the remote panorama. Of special interest to me were the
collection of mountains from which Post Glacier descends
to Temple Bay. They are marked on the chart like
nunataks, peaks rising out of a sheet of inland ice, just

STICKY KEEP AND THE SASSENDAL FROM GRIT RIDGE.

what we desired to see ; but they are nothing of the sort —
only a collection of points and ridges of the usual type ;
feeding, with the snows they gather, a series of glaciers
whose direction of flow is determined by their form and
position. In the neighbourhood of Temple Bay is no ice-
sheet in the Greenland sense of the term, but rather a

120 SPITSBERGEN chap, viii
miniature group of Alps. The brown flat Sassendal stretched
abroad at our feet, below a cliff, whose black buttress-
knees jutted out against it, each pair with a snow couloir
between. The nature of its floor was now as plainly evi
dent, where were bogs and where dry places, as though
it were a damp piece of stuff held in the hand. The lower
slopes were beautifully decorated with an intricate tracery
of stream-furrows, like skeleton leaves, whilst down the
midst, bending in wide curves, ran the purple and steel
band of the main river, and its stony and changeful bed,
¦ending a few miles below Rabot Glacier, in an area of
snow-bog and ice-foot, apparent from this distance as a
smooth white plain. The glacier itself stretched far back
in unbroken sweep to a level white sky-line, but there were
indications which made me suspect (what afterwards proved
to be the case) that we were really looking over a col,
and that the remoter snowfield is drained away down the
other side of the watershed. It, in fact, feeds the ice-tongue
that fills the head of Mohn Bay.
Over against our peak, along the far side of the Sas
sendal, stretched the curious assemblage of the Colorado
Hills. The nature of this area was now most interestingly
apparent. It is a portion of the old plateau, which, till
recently, was protected from denudation by an ice-sheet.
This has been withdrawn, and the surface, no longer
protected, is being cut down by the action of running
water. A series of canons is being formed, from which
the region was named by Nathorst in 1882. The ice-sheet
once spread far to the west, but long ago retreated up
to the edge of what is now the Sassendal, so that the
region through which we had recently come is occupied
by mountains which are of a more developed and less
rounded character the farther west you go towards Advent
Bay. It was only some weeks later that we were enabled,

LOOKING SOU'lH FROM THE TOP UF STICKY KEEP.

chap, viii STICKY KEEP 121
by a closer examination, to establish this interesting fact.
The Colorado region shows the first beginnings of hill
formation by water action. The row of hills on the south
west side of the Sassendal are typical of the next stage of
development. The hills between De Geer Valley and Advent
Bay are complete and developed mountains, with sharp
ridges and forms of marked individuality.
Beyond the Colorado Hills a range of higher peaks stood
up against the horizon, but only their summits were visible,
and we could not discover the principle of their arrange
ment. They appeared to be connected with the Temple
Mountain group, and to enclose glaciers draining down to
the Post Glacier and so to Temple Bay. This is a region
that would well repay exploration, and would be approached
most easily by way of the Post Glacier.
Turning our backs on the Colorado Hills, we had before
us the region through which we had come, when clouds
permitted us to see no more than the bases of mountains
whose whole mass was now revealed. Booming Glacier
stretched back prominently in the midst of a tumultuous
region of hills. It is a more important ice-river than we
supposed, and flows down in sinuous curves from a remote
snowfield, about and beyond whose head appeared a tantalis
ing multitude of peaks. Between the Baldhead and Fox Peak
again, was another considerable glacier basin, of whose extent
we unfortunately never attained accurate information. The
view, as a whole, was of a region in which man has no
abiding-place — a land not made for man, but mainly inimical
to him. In such a world the human species would swiftly
degenerate and presently disappear. Birds and reindeer
would alone survive, and the highest civilisation would be
that of the glaucous gulls.
Garwood joined me on the summit, when the plane-
tabling was done. Together we went again round the view,

122 SPITSBERGEN chap, viii
photographing, discussing, and agreeing upon conclusions.
The wind was cool, but the sun so warm that, in descending,
we found it agreeable to rest in the shade below each
shoulder of the ridge. The sliding debris was pleasant to
descend. Then came a snow couloir and a short glissade
below it. On reaching camp I took my rifle — for we had
no shot-gun — and went to stalk a company of pink-footed
geese who had come to visit the twelve nesting couples by the
waterfall. One, I thought, was as good as in the pot, but the
rifle missed fire, thanks to the state of rust into which Pedersen
had allowed it to come — small blame to him, considering
through how much water the sledges had been dragged.
After supper came a golden midnight, when the sun
shone warmly and the sky was clear. Between wind and
waterfall, sounds reached us through all the sleeping hours
as of trains going into tunnels and cuttings. Long and late
we slept, making a " Europe morning " and a day of rest of
the Sunday (July 5) that followed. It was a day amongst
a thousand, worth winning by weeks of labour and wet.
Cool airs played around ; the sun was warm, and the pale
blue sky brilliantly clear. It might have been an English
May day. There was a Sunday sentiment in the air. One
almost expected to hear church bells pealing from afar off
over the russet Sassendal flats, but the only sounds were the
booming river, the rippling brook, and the flapping of the
tents in the breeze.
Two reindeer came and stalked us. They wandered up
to the tents and smelt at the sleeping-bags lying out for
an airing. We took snapshots at them with harmless
cameras till we were tired, and left them to amuse them
selves as they liked best — one might as well shoot sheep in
a field as such careless and stupid beasts.
The snowfield at the head of Rabot Glacier was abso
lutely clear, and, to an unobservant eye, might have seemed

chap, viii STICKY KEEP 123
near at hand. Its neve was grey rather than white, a char
acteristic appearance in these regions, if the always low
sun happens to be at the back of the observer, so that
little light is reflected to the eye from the almost horizontal
surface of the snow-field. In the Alps neves are seldom so
horizontal, unless they occupy depressions, where the low
sun only casts shadows upon them ; moreover, in lower
latitudes the sun is much nearer the zenith most of the
time, and when it descends to the midday level of Spits
bergen its light comes through dustier air beds, and is thereby
deprived of the whiteness which even the low Spitsbergen
sun generally retains. Owing to the relative gentleness of
winds here, and to the larger proportion of snow-covering
at high levels to bare rock, neves in Spitsbergen are cleaner,
carry less surface dust, than they do in Alps or Himalaya.
The whiter surface and the cleaner low levels of atmos
phere thus conspire to deprive distant snow-fields of the
more varied colouring we are accustomed to in Europe.
Only at distances of twenty miles or more is enough of the
clear atmosphere interposed to cast a mellow glamour over
wide snowy prospects in the Arctic regions.
About seven P.M. Gregory walked into camp, calling aloud
for tea and victuals. He was bearer of no good tidings.
He told how, after leaving us the day before, the tired
ponies dragged the light sledges slowly along the hill-side,
over boggy places, towards ever-receding Sassen Bay. They
passed the mouth of the first valley (into which we looked
from Sticky Keep), getting fairly ducked in the stream. A
while after, Gregory found the biscuits in his pocket sopping
wet, and set them on the sledge end to dry. It was the
last he saw of them. Spits lets no food remain long
untried within reach of her omnivorous maw, and she
already knew by experience that biscuits were good. The
next stage of the way was when they rounded the foot of

i24 SPITSBERGEN chap, viii
Mount Marmier, and turned along the shore of Sassen Bay,
where another stream had to be crossed, beyond which they
ascended the low Starvation Bluff and halted. There was
no boat in sight ; our companions had not arrived from
Advent Point. Here was a pretty mess ! Gregory and
Pedersen had practically no food — only a fragment or two
of Emergency Food and chocolate. Pedersen was pro
vided with his sleeping-bag, so in that respect he was well
enough off, but Gregory had nothing, and was wet to the
skin into the bargain. They laid out their things to dry in
the sun, and tried to shoot eider-ducks, but without success.
Pedersen took the rifle and went after reindeer, whilst
Gregory hammered for fossils. No meat resulted. Pedersen
missed an easy shot, and said that the Paradox gun was no
use. They turned in without eating anything, or rather
Pedersen turned in ; Gregory had nothing into which to
turn. About three in the morning they heard shots fired
some way off. Gregory sent Pedersen to find the shooters,
and then availed himself of the vacant sleeping-bag and had
a short rest. At ten o'clock Pedersen returned with the
following note : — " South Side of Sassen Bay,
$th of July '96.
" Dear Dr. Gregory, — By your man I have heard that
you are somewhat short of food, and that you expected to
meet your boat in Sassen Bay. Though we have ourselves
not much more than necessary, having stopped here somewhat
longer than we intended, I venture to send you some simple
provisions and matches, so that you will be able to reach your
camp and your comrades. In the outer part of Sassen Bay
there is tolerably much drift ice, and it is possible that your
boat could not pass or did not venture into the ice. It is
to be hoped that the ice soon will spread ; if not, you may
have to reach Advent Bay the same way you came. If we

WATERFALL CAMP AND THE SASSENDAL.

chap, viii STICKY KEEP 125
can get out to Advent Bay we will ask your man to start
with the boat at once and bring you assistance. — Yours
very sincerely, •'Gerard de Geer."

With this kind and timely relief Gregory was able to
await events. He stayed to geologise and watch the effect
of the tide upon the ice. Pedersen thought that a boat
might have entered the bay on the previous day, and pro
phesied that in a few hours, with the wind in the quarter it
was, the ice would open again. After four in the afternoon
Gregory started away, leaving Pedersen with all the pro
visions, to await the coming of Trevor-Battye. He made a
rapid march and arrived fairly done up. It is not the dis
tances that are fatiguing in these parts, but the labour in
volved in taking every step.
A council was held on our sledgeless condition, and it
was decided to feed Gregory rip and give him a good rest, to
the end that, on the morrow, he should walk back over Brent
Pass, and set things moving at Advent Point, whilst we pushed
camp across the flooded Esker River and explored the neigh
bouring peaks and valleys. The delay was less annoying
than it might have been, for there was plenty to do in the
surrounding country. Now that the short northern summer
had set in, flowers were opening on all sides, and several
grasses put forth their tender shoots. A veritable Arctic
garden surrounded the tents, for the ground was gay with
blossom. There were large patches of Saxifraga oppositifolia
scattered about like crimson rugs. Dryas octopetala and the
Arctic poppy were as common as buttercups and daisies in
an English meadow. Yellow Potentillas (verna and multifidd)
added their welcome note of bright colour. The Alpine
Cerastium was the gracefullest blossom of the company.
Then there were two Drabas, a Silene, Lychnis apetala, Oxyria

126 SPITSBERGEN

CHAP. VIII

rcniformis, and a number of other plants not yet in flower,
besides the mosses. It was strange to meet again in this
remote region so many plants that I had found by the
glaciers and amongst the crags of the Karakoram-Himalaya.
Papavcr nudicale and Saxifraga flagellaris recalled a wonder
ful day's march in 1892 up the left bank of the Hispar Glacier,
noblest of Asiatic ice-streams. Lychnis apetala grew com
monly by the great Baltoro Glacier in full view of mighty
Masherbrum. Potentilla multifida was common at lower
levels in Hunza and Nagar. Saxifraga oppositifolia and
Saxifraga her cuius climb to a height of 17,000 feet and more
on the sides of the greatest giants of that most wonderful
range. Here they all were again, as bright, and maintaining
themselves as happily in the heart of the Arctic regions as
on the backbone of Asia.
The nesting geese by the waterfall gave us constant en
tertainment, unfortunately for them. We thought it was
our visits that made them shy, but we were only unwillingly
at fault. It was the glaucous gulls, attracted by our camp
refuse, who were the real sinners. When they had devoured
our leavings they turned their attentions to the nests, eating
the eggs one by one and then the fledglings, till not one
remained, and the bereaved geese deserted the place. One
clay I observed four gulls, in solemn conclave, watching me
as I cut joints off a reindeer. The birds saw the joints put
into a stream of icy water below our snow-patch, and had a
great deal to say about them. Fearing what might happen,
I knocked the tail-feathers out of one gull with a bullet, but
the lesson did not suffice, for on returning to camp that
evening we found our meat gone and two birds a hundred
yards off sitting by the bones and chuckling at us. Each
joint must have weighed as much as a gull ; how they
managed to carry them away, without leaving a footprint in
the soft bank of our brook, was and remained a mystery.

LOOKING UP THE SASSENDAL.

J _*rS*3?-2'-!

AFTER THE DAY'S MARCH.

CHAPTER IX

ASCENT OF GRIT RIDGE

AT 5.30 P.M. (July 6) Gregory started for his thirty-mile
/Y bog-tramp to Advent Bay. He went forth in the
gayest fashion, saying it was some time since he had walked
fifty miles at a stretch, but that he thought this thirty might
be counted as an equivalent, which indeed was true. The
Trident fired a salute of falling stones in his honour. Things
having been set in order in and about the tents, films changed
in the cameras, and lunch packed, Garwood and I also left,
at seven P.M., for a mountain scramble. Our plan was to
descend the main valley to the mouth of the first or Delta
Valley, which penetrates the high land just beyond Sticky
Keep. We mounted gradually over the foot-slopes of that
hill, thus gaining an ever wider view towards Sassen Bay,
whither we looked in vain for traces of our over-due com
panions. The bay was practically clear of ice, save a few
isolated floes, and its waters were so incredibly calm that
the Sentinel Rock and all the details of the Temple's facade
were repeated below. It was a day of wonderful colour ;

128 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix
the rich atmosphere dyed rocks and distances as with the
priceless product of Tyrrhenian seas, and the eye, gaze in
what direction it might, beheld no form that was not largely
dignified, and no tints that were not rich and harmoniously
combined. A cloud-bank lay flat below the northern sky,
and a few collar clouds encircled the throats of nearer peaks,
whilst round white islands drifted over the blue heavens ;
but they formed only to fade again, and indicated no lurking
ill-temper of the sky.
An hour's walk led to the north foot of Sticky Keep,
which was rounded some 200 feet above the plain. On the
wide ridge was a polygonal bog of strange regularity. The
muddy disintegration of the friable rocks above, here lies
almost flat for a while in its slow, glacier-like descent. Ex
panding and contracting between extremes of temperature,
it becomes cracked up hexagonally. Seeds find lodgment in
the cracks, which thus become outlined by ridges of mossy
and other increasing vegetable growths. The naked mud
within the hexagons again, by processes of freezing and
thawing, is forced up into rough and broken domes, whilst
the vegetation grows into bosses and clogs the water wash
ing down from snow-beds above. The ground becomes
saturated, and a regular bog is formed, which moves
slowly downward, sometimes splitting into crevasses, or
giving way into stream channels, whilst, at the time of
great snow melting, small mud rivers flow down on to it,
and further diversify and confuse the soft and tangled surface.
As the ground beneath is released from its winter bondage,
the whole becomes softer and less stable. Thus it flows, rather
than falls, to the valley below, where it comes to relative repose
on the wide and ever-widening boggy flat.
Farther up the hill-sides one can watch the process,
whereby the mud is formed out of the soft horizontally-
bedded rocks of which the hills are built. Melting snow

chap, ix GRIT RIDGE 129
and splitting frost loosen and crack the slabs into a mere
slope of debris, all rotten and ready again to split and resplit.
Sodden snow and trickling water rapidly produce immense
quantities of mud, which partly support, partly carry down
the stones that are not reduced to powder. On hot or wet
days streams of this stuff, small mud avalanches, in which
the mud predominates over the stones, trickle down the
slopes, and either reform on gentler slopes below, or flow
on to the surface of some glacier. In the latter case they
are carried down, and ultimately either shovelled off the sides
and end to form astonishingly large masses of boulder-clay,
or dumped into the stream and carried straight away to fill
the estuary at the river's mouth.
This day was really hot. The sun shone with sensible
power, and all the land felt its force. The snows had now
been subjected to its dissolving action without cessation for
all the four-and-twenty hours of three consecutive days.
What melting had thus been accomplished may be readily
imagined. One could see the snow-beds growing smaller.
Whole white hill-sides became brown between sleeping and
waking. Brown slopes with no more snow above them dried
into grey cakes. Bog-slopes facing the sun steamed like hot
potatoes. Every water-course was swollen to its full capacity,
and the brooklets of the previous week were channels diffi
cult to wade. We discovered this to our cost when within
Delta Valley its river had to be crossed. It was a raging
torrent between ice-banks which it undermined. For some
distance there was no point where a passage could even be
attempted. A division in the valley was reached, where the
stream unites two almost equal branches, one coming
from the col leading to Brent Pass, the other from a glacier
basin between Mounts Lusitania and Marmier, the explora
tion of which was the day's aim. The first branch had to
be crossed ; it seemed no shallower than the united torrents.

130 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix
Selecting the best place to be found, we plunged through
and scrambled out on to the overhanging ice-bank beyond,
wet to the belts.
The ice-foot of the Grit Ridge Glacier reached to the
junction of the two torrents, so that the second torrent,
which was in fact the glacier stream, need not have been
crossed at all. Its left bank, however, offered a more com
fortable route, so we jumped across at a point where the
overhanging ice-banks reached out towards one another.
The torrent, with its floor and walls of purest ice and its
dark waters, was a beautiful thing. Garwood lingered behind
to investigate the structure of the ice, where, at one point, its
rod-like crystalline structure was displayed. He almost lost
his life in consequence. The corniced bank gave way be
neath his feet as he approached the edge to take a photo
graph. By a fortunate chance he did not fall into the race
of waters, whence he could not possibly have emerged alive,
for the floor was ice, the torrent was in flood, and the walls
overhung like a tunnel. He was facing the stream, and he
went straight down, but his elbows behind his back caught
on the newly-broken edge, and there he hung suspended,
unable to get any purchase with his feet, for they went right
back against the slippery and still overhanging wall. He
believes he remained in this dreadful position for ten minutes,
before, by some twisting arrangement, he balanced himself
on one hand, and reached his geological hammer with the
other. He ultimately dug this in, and made of it a prop
by which he withdrew himself from a very nasty situation.
Then he took the photograph, and thereupon continued
his way.
Meanwhile I was wandering calmly over the lower slopes
of Mount Marmier, seeking a good plane-table station, and
ignorant of the adventure in progress below. Rounding a
corner, the Grit Ridge Glacier came in sight, and beyond it

CHAP. IX

GRIT RIDGE

lV

Grit Ridge itself, which belongs to the Lusitania massif, and
is, in fact, parallel to and south of the ridge of that moun
tain, whose slope falls northward to Sassen Bay. Another

GARWOOD SLIPPING INTO THE TORRENT.

glacier, filling the hollow between these two ridges, and
whose main torrent descends direct to Sassen Bay, close by
Starvation Bluff, sends a snout over the depression between

132 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix
Grit Ridge and Mount Marmier, and the stream from this
cuts a deep gorge in the left marginal moraines and
boulder-clay piles of the Grit Ridge Glacier. My route inter
posed this gorge between me and the direct ascent to Grit
Ridge. It was a gorge with precipitous sides of mixed
composition, sometimes cut down into the paper-shales
below, sometimes blocked by great boulders of hard rock
from Grit Ridge, sometimes falling by steps, over which
the water plunged in wild leaps. I made many ineffectual
attempts to cross it. Once when I was cutting steps down
the steep side wall of compact debris the whole thing gave
way, and down I went, only just arresting my fall at the top
of one of the cascades. I ultimately crossed by a rotten
ice-bridge. Garwood joined me on the glacier, and we went
forward together. We concluded that solitary rambling in
such regions is unwise. Sane persons do not ramble alone
in the upper regions of the Alps, but we had not yet come
to realise that wherever ice reigns, though it be but a few
feet above sea-level, precautions should be taken which
are beyond the resources of a single individual. This day
we had come out, as usual, without a rope. As will be 'seen,
we were destined to repent the omission.?
The surface of this glacier, like all others we had thus
far seen, was entirely and deeply covered with winter snow.
It became a question of wading, not of walking. Reindeer
tracks abounded, ascending even to the neves1 and crossing
high ridges ; they were all fresh, doubtless indicating that
the warm weather was leading the beasts up to cooler feed
ing-places. At all events, after the heat came, we no longer
saw any reindeer about camp, whereas before they had
been grazing around on all sides — a fact which, as will be
1 I use the ordinary word neve to denote the upper basin of a glacier. There
are, however, no true neves in Spitsbergen. All the snow that falls in a season is
turned into ice before the next.

chap, ix GRIT RIDGE 133
seen, was full of misfortune for us. Fox tracks were like
wise numerous and recent. Brer Fox in these parts seems
to be a "monstrous soon beast," leaving traces everywhere,
but seldom visible in his own proper person. Thus far he
had preceded us up every hill we climbed. He traversed
Fox Peak. He was not only up Sticky Keep, but he went
out of his way to scramble to the edge of the overhang
ing cornice at its highest point, apparently to obtain an
uninterrupted view all round. We caught a glimpse of him,
watching us at the pitching of Cairn Camp. This day we saw
him again, but very far off, alternately stopping to look at
us and then cantering away over the snow with the jauntiest
gait imaginable.
The ascent to the lowest hill-top of Grit Ridge was dull
and laborious, up a snow gully, the rotten shale-ridge by it,
and the rottener slopes above, to the snow crest. Mount
Lusitania rose opposite, beyond a large n6v6 basin. It hid
much of the desired view, and so became an enviable point
of vantage ; moreover, I had sentimental reasons for wishing
to make the ascent. In the year 1894 the Orient Company's
steamship Lusitania took a party for a cruise in Spitsbergen
waters. After reaching latitude 8oc 30' north, they spent
three days in Sassen Bay, during which a passenger, Mr.
Victor H. Gatty, climbed and named this peak. He wrote
an account of it and sent it to me, as Editor of the Alpine
Journal, for publication.1 I was thus led to look up the
history of mountain exploration in Spitsbergen, and this
was how my attention came to be directed to the region.
Mount Lusitania was, in fact, the cause of our presence in
its neighbourhood.
The day was now superb, with clear distant views, and
such depth of blue even in the nearest shadows upon the
1 Alpine fotirnal, vol. xvii. p. 309.

134 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix
snow that they seemed like sky-carpets cast upon the earth.
We decided to attempt the ascent. Lightly we set forth
over the wide snowfield, imagining that it would resemble
the others we had crossed. At first all went well ; the snow
was pretty good, and we sank only calf-deep into it. After
half-an-hour we began to go in knee-deep. Then followed
an area of mere flour and pie-crust — a surface too weak
to bear our weight, but strong enough to resist the forward
pressure of the knee. Advance became absurdly slow, and
half the passage was not accomplished. Sometimes the ice-
axe, plunged up to its head, reached the hard ice below,
but often soundings failed to reveal any firm bottom. We
erroneously supposed that this was because the surface
snow was deeper than the length of the axe. The winter
snow was still present in overwhelming quantity. If the
snowfield we expected to cross to Agardh Bay were to
prove in this condition, a week would be needed to tra
verse a few miles of it. The reflection did not add to our
happiness. At last, when I sank in deeper than usual, an
ominous tinkle was heard below. It was caused by icicles
falling into a crevasse. This was more than we bargained
for. We had not brought a rope. Careful inspection now re
vealed a maze of crevasses ahead, deeply snow-buried, whilst
away to the right were the tops of a quantity of seracs.
We did not yet realise that there were crevasses all round
us, and that we had been walking over a whole series of
them for a couple of hours. Every time that the axe failed
to touch bottom it was because we were over a crevasse,
and not because the winter snow was too deep. This I dis
covered many days later, when looking down upon the
glacier from the top of Mount Lusitania. All the fresh
snow was then melted away from this area, and the net
work of crevasses was revealed in naked complexity. The
schrunds were wider than the ice-walls dividing them, and I

chap, ix GRIT RIDGE 135
shuddered to think that we had actually walked, unroped,
across so dangerous a place.
As it was, however, we knew enough to perceive the
necessity for care. Advance became cautious as well as
slow. Every step was probed in advance. Another crevasse
was revealed, then a third, the farther side of which could
not be felt. We tracked along it, but could not cross. An

PROBING FOR HIDDEN CREVASSES.

hour passed, and we were no nearer Mount Lusitania. The
crevasse swept round the whole width of the glacier, and
cut us off. There was no wise alternative but to go back.
It was taken with regret. We returned in our steps past
what we knew to be a crevassed area, then bent off to the
right and climbed a higher point on Grit Ridge. The snow
remained wet and evil. Its surface glittered with the mere
tinsel of water-drops, not with such sparkling ice-brilliants
as adorned the snows of Fox Peak.
Sometime after midnight the top of our second-choice

136 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix
peak (2130 feet) was gained (July 7), a good summit of large
firm rocks of a kind new to us. They formed comfortable
and dry seats, where, in shelter from the light cool air, we
could bask in the warm sunshine, and, removing wet boots
and stockings, could let our cold feet feel the genial
warmth. Here lunch was consumed, and two enjoyable
hours were passed, valuable also for surveying purposes. A
few clouds alternately assembled and dispersed, but they hid
no portion of the glorious panorama, which included, from
a new standpoint, only peaks, glaciers, and valleys already
known to us. The snowy region at the head of the Rabot
Glacier, in the remote distance, was better seen than ever
before, and we thought we could distinguish Mounts Teist
and Krogh and other snowy domes, whose bases are washed
by the waters of Wybe Jans Water.
The descent was without incident. We kept together,
and found a better ford over the torrent. Camp was
reached about seven a.m. in the waxing daylight. Our last
looks whilst preparing supper were towards Temple Mountain,
whose rock face was being washed by light from the east,
which so outlined its many ribs with bluest shadows as
to render it the very semblance of a vast and splendid
columnar edifice, rising upon a boldly sloping plinth from
the blue surface of the bay. The gently rounded snow
dome above completed an architectural suggestion, which
genius, with opportunity, might work out into a monument
of transcendent magnificence.
After some hours of tranquil slumber we awoke to find
nothing changed save the direction of the wind, the incidence
of the shadows, and the volume of our supplies. Glaucous
gulls had been busy with our reindeer carcass.
" Crammed and gorged, nigh burst with sucked and glutted offal,"
they jeered at us as we came forth. They had dragged

CHAP. IX

GRIT RIDGE

m

the reindeer's skin twenty yards away down a snow-slope into
the brook, and, with incomparable impudence, left it exactly
where they found and carried off the joints. The snow was
covered with their footprints, and with reindeer hair along
the track made by the skin. Our food supplies being thus

MOUNT MARMIER AND THE COLORADO PLATEAU SEEN ACROSS THE
SASSENDAL FROM MOUNT LUSITANIA.

reduced, the first business of the day was to go up the
valley and fetch the reindeer shot by Pedersen, and, as we
supposed, concealed. Coming in sight of the place, we saw
afar off a cloudy white patch upon the ground with a
glaucous gull in the midst. The patch was reindeer hair,
strewn about. Only the skeleton and skin of the carcass

138 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix
remained. The rest had been eaten. We searched in all
directions for the beasts which had been so plentiful a
few days before. They were no longer in the neighbour
hood ; warm weather, I suppose, lured them aloft. The
return to camp was rather less light-hearted than the
departure had been, but we were presently cheered by the
sound of a human voice, and peeping forth saw a man
approaching over the plain, driving two ponies, and, by
some freak of light, looking, as he drove, far "larger than
human " on the sunny plain. It proved to be Trevor-Battye
come from Sassen Bay.
He had landed, at ten in the morning, at Starvation Bluff.
It was eleven o'clock at night when he came into camp,
fairly tired out. On landing he met Pedersen with the
ponies, and heard a wonderful tale of our miseries up country,
and how we were on the point of dying of starvation — all abso
lute moonshine, but Pedersen was a born romancer. Send
ing the others back to Advent Point with the boat to fetch
the sledges, and loading up the ponies with packs, Trevor-
Battye hastened, as he supposed, to our relief. His march
was no light matter. There were no pack-saddles, and the
ponies were not used to carrying loads. They were frightened
by the glitter of tins on their backs and the tinkling of spirits
in them. The loads came loose, and things tumbled off and
had to be cached here and there along the way. At last
Bergen set to work kicking and bucking. His load shifted
round under his belly, and he seemed to have become fairly
frantic ; finally Trevor-Battye cut the lashings in despair, and
permitted the burdens to fall on the ground, noting the
position of the place, as well as he could in the dense fog
that then prevailed. Unfortunately Pedersen, who did the
lading, had used the sledge-harness and our climbing-rope to
fasten the loads. These were now cut into small pieces — a
misfortune that in coming weeks caused us infinite annoy-

CHAP. IX

GRIT RIDGE

*39

ance. When Trevor-Battye at length reached Waterfall
Camp he was the only burden-bearer, the ponies following
him unloaded. With them came the sea-fog, burying all
the valley out of sight. Garwood again went forth after
reindeer, but it was a hopeless quest in such atmosphere.
He returned empty-handed.

HA1RCUTTING.

z ' y--~- -

LOOKING SOUTH-EAST FROM THE TRIDENT.

CHAPTER X

THE TRIDENT

THE rare spell of fine weather was in fact at an end,
and the mist when it rose formed into higher clouds
which hid sun and peaks from valley floors. This mattered
the less, as we had work in hand which seemed to require no
distant prospect. Camp had to be moved across the Esker
Stream, and the things Trevor-Battye had been forced to
drop on his upward way must be fetched in.
At eight P.M. (July 8) we settled down to our respective
tasks, after a lengthy argument as to whether it was really
eight P.M. or eight a.m., and whether it was to-day, yesterday,
or to-morrow, so confusing does the lack of night become,
especially when the sun goes behind a roof of cloud, and
one cannot reckon, after the fashion of sailors in these

chap, x THE TRIDENT 141
parts, by the point of the compass at which it stands.
Garwood and Trevor-Battye took the ponies and went down
the valley, whilst I struck camp. They were lost in the
mist a few yards away, and I was alone with the glaucous
gulls. Pulling down and packing tents and baggage is slow
and rather tough work for a single pair of hands. As each
bundle was completed I carried it down to the foot of the
hill, across a brook, and deposited it at the margin of the
ford about three furlongs away. There were infinite small
tins and bags to be bundled up somehow ; having travelled
hither on sledges, there were no sacks to hold them. After
an hour or so the mist rose about a hundred feet off the
ground, revealing the solemn brown and purple plain with
leaden rivers flowing through it — a flat of apparently limit
less extent, for all its margins ultimately faded into fog.
Eight heavy loads I portered, one by one, down the
boggy hill-side. The first was something carried away from
camp out into the wide world ; but, as each load followed
and fewer remained behind, as each tent was in turn
emptied, and the canteen and store-tins disappeared, the
sense of home was taken from the old place, and gradually
transferred to the pile of baggage by the ford. Strange,
how keen in the wilderness becomes the sentiment attach
ing to "one's things," the visible and transient connection
that for the time links one with a particular spot and
distinguishes it from all others ! Their presence anywhere
invests the place with a kind of consecration, as of the
Aryans' sacred hearth. Remove them elsewhere, and the
spot they quit reverts at once to its former aloofness. The
stones on the ground, for a day known so well, give up
their individuality, and become mere common fragments of
the broken hill-side, not different from millions more about
them. The- camp-knoll melts into the landscape, and is
unrecognised a mile away.

142 SPITSBERGEN chap, x
By midnight my work was done ; all the baggage was
grouped by the river-side, except a pile of geological speci
mens packed in tins, in charge of which, and of the reindeer
skeleton, was a solitary skua, who croaked some kind of
farewell at me as I finally turned on my heel. Five minutes
later a crowd of gulls were in occupation of the abandoned
site. The river, where we had to ford it, was swollen to
over a hundred yards in width, with low stone-beds emerg
ing from the water here and there. By selecting a zigzag
course, shallow places could be found, so that the ford was
nowhere deeper than a few inches above the knee. The
water was ice-cold and the current rapid. I sat down tired
on the bank and thought the prospect dismal. Long it
seemed before the others returned ; there was no sign of
them over the dismal flat or along the sloping foot of Sticky
Keep. Distant lumps of moss on the sky-line against the
mist sometimes mimicked the forms of their heads. No
breeze stirred, nothing moved save the muddy torrent. The
only sounds were its treble babblings, and the faint bass
note of the hidden waterfall ; rarely a bird's cry broke the
silence. A flock of eider-ducks flew by, but never a goose.
The bereaved birds had gone away. A garden of little white
flowers blossomed about me in the dry mud. There was
no novelty amongst them. I sat on, smoking, and thinking of
many things, as the stream flowed by, but with one eye fixed
on any hill-slope that might be clear, in hopes to see a rein
deer. None appeared ; only grev erratic blocks or dustv snow-
patches mimicking their form. At last the absentees emerged
from a distant island of fog. The cooking-pot was set boiling,
and, when they arrived, hot soup consoled them for the
streams they had forded, and the fog that prevented their
finding one of the piles of things, and thus deprived their
labour of half its reward, and incidentally wasted another
day of my time.

WADING A TORRENT.

chap, x THE TRIDENT 143
About two A.M. (July 9), we shouldered heavy packs and
entered the water with Bergen well laden. The passage was
safely accomplished, the only misfortune being that on the
far side the pony got rather badly bogged. A good site was
found for the new camp (97 feet), and I remained to pitch it,
whilst Garwood led back Bergen for another load. My
work concluded, and the others not arriving, I went back
to see the cause of their delay, and was exactly in time for
the show. Trevor-Battye and Garwood were leading the
ponies down the opposite bank, Spits with two evenly-
balanced packs, Bergen (who before crossed so calmly) with
a miscellaneous assortment of goods elaborately attached.
All went well about half-way ; then Bergen took fright and
began bolting and bucking. He dragged himself loose from
Garwood, and began pirouetting around, with his hind-legs
or all his legs in the air, making bolts hither and thither,
pausing for another series of bucks, and bolting again. At
last his load flew in all directions, the whole of it fortunately
landing on an island, where my despatch box burst open.
Diaries, note-books, envelopes, ink-pots, aneroids, thermo
meters, boxes of photograph-films, and what not strewed
the foul ground. By a miracle no important thing was lost.
Freed from its load, the pony made off up stream through
deep water, and landed at the mouth of Waterfall Gorge,
whilst Spitz stood neighing, and the others split their sides
with hysterical laughter. It was a comic scene, not unmixed
with a tragic element, for it meant much tedious work to be
done. I hurried after the truant, who fortunately became
bogged and was easily overtaken and brought back, but all
attempts to reload him only brought on convulsions again, and
we had to do his work. The scattered things were gathered
together. The contents of the despatch box were laboriously
recovered. The case itself, an old cartridge-box, still grimy
with Himalayan and other mountain dust, rubbed into its

H4 SPITSBERGEN chap, x
canvas cover at various times and in many places, was now
coated with Arctic ooze.
When Bucking-horse Camp was pitched and cooking
well in hand, after three hours' toil in and about the ford,
Garwood, who had done the lion's share, told us of a
certain miserable day spent geologising in the North of
England. He was awaiting a train in Appleby refreshment
room, when a dripping drover entered. " Give me some
hot water, Miss," he said to the barmaid, "and some sugar
and plenty of brandy. I'm sick of this blooming world."
We were all sick of this blooming world that night, but
there was no consoling bar at hand, and water took long to
boil in the rising wind. Ultimately all was comfortably
arranged. We retired to rest with the dark outlines of
various drying garments visible through the semi-transparent
roof of our tent, and looking like so many misshapen torsoes
and amputated limbs.
Cold blew the wind through the hours of rest, and
miserable was the chill and cloudy weather to which we
awoke. I had journals to write and a tent to mend. The
others went forth to look for birds, fossils, and especially
for a reindeer. Writing in camp was frigid work. I re
treated into a sleeping-bag for warmth. Time passed, and
work was done, but without incident or satisfaction. The
darning of stockings is doubtless an occupation not without
charm, but to lie on your face in a freezing wind, and drive
a packing-needle through sail-cloth and rubber sheeting
(when it does not go into your hand), is a wholly disagree
able employment. It suggested an inquiry to which no
solution was apparent: Why is it so much easier to drive
the blunt head of the needle firmly into the hard object
you use in place of thimble, than to force the sharp point
through the relatively soft material it is intended to pierce ?
The fact is indisputable, the cause obscure. Another curious

chap, x THE TRIDENT 145
fact was brought to my notice by the day's experience. It
would have been supposed, considering the number of
generations there have been of sewing humanity, that sewing
tackle would be as nigh perfect as possible. Yet apparently
it has been left to me to discover that the head of an ice-
axe is far superior to any thimble for the purposes to which
thimbles are devoted. Sewing at the luckiest is a dangerous
employment, and should be so scheduled. Every hus'if
ought to contain sticking-plaister. Mine does, and this day
it was largely employed, and very useful.
Before midnight the sun shone brightly, but there was
no warmth in his beams. At the same altitude above the
horizon in India his rays would be hot enough to give a
sunstroke. His spare efficiency might be better distributed.
After midnight I was free to wander forth, and use the
renewed clearness for survey purposes. My way was up
the main valley across the lower slopes. It was delightful
to find a mile of fairly hard ground on which one could
stride freely, and feel the joy of visible advance, instead of
creeping painfully from step to step. The Trident's jutting
bluff aloft showed some boldness of front, and thrust steep-
seeming crags into the sky. The cool temperature and
breezy air, which made work in camp so unpleasant, were
exactly right for exercise ; blood coursed bravely through
the veins, and activity brought joy to the mind as well as
comfort to the body. A mile or so along, near the mouth
of the next small side valley, Garwood came up with pockets
full of fossils, gathered in the second small side valley, where
he and Trevor-Battye had seen two shy reindeer, which they
failed to secure. Trevor-Battye went on to Turnback Valley,
and came into camp later, when supper was cooking, and
the tents were set in order for sleep.
His observations led him to conclude that, in the matter
of birds, there was no new work to be done in the interior,

1 46 SPITSBERGEN chap, x
whilst the flora of the inland valleys and hills is identical
with that of the coast. Nothing, therefore, attracted him to
remain with us. He accordingly determined to take the
ponies down to meet Gregory at Sassen Bay, and to utilise
the boat during our absence for the purpose of visiting
Dickson Bay, or such other points on the shore of Ice
Fjord as might afford opportunities for his special studies.
He undertook either himself to meet us at Sassen Bay in
ten days' time, or to send a boat to await us, if he could
hire one from any sloop or at Advent Point.
Accordingly, in the afternoon he and I set forth with the
beasts, whilst Garwood went to climb the North Prong
{2172 feet) of the Trident, whence he returned in due time
¦with many photographs and some useful topographical and
geological observations. We, meanwhile, waded the ford
yet again, and plodded down the valley, going first over
the Esker's spongy raised delta, and then along the bog-
slopes, always looking out for the abandoned bundles. At
last we found them and halted to divide the spoil, part of
which I loaded into my rucksack, part left for future use on
our return, whilst the remainder, consisting of clothes and
the like, was packed with much careful balance and solici
tude, on the backs of the now unresisting beasts. After
starting Battye on his farther way, I left him, and retrod
the track, bearing a precious load of salt, onions, two bottles
of beer, oatmeal, Irish stew, and such like, the burden being
made light and the way short by foretasting the pride
wherewith I would display such treasures to the admiring
Garwood. The deserted camp, with one tent prone, looked
forlorn indeed ; there was a note from Garwood detailing
his plans, and the sun was shining brightly, but never
a pony neighed nor a living thing stirred in the large
solitude, save when some fulmar petrel came by — one of
the long procession now continually passing up the valley

chap, x THE TRIDENT 147
on the way to the east coast. Sitting silent in the tent, one
could hear from time to time the whirr of their strong
wings as they passed close overhead.
I brewed a cup of tea — no brief task when water has to
be fetched from a snow-hole, into which it but slowly
trickles — the lamp filled with spirit, cup cleaned, boiling
brought about with the normal deliberation of the watched
pot, the compound strained, milk and sugar dislodged from
their hiding-places, and all by one pair of hands, within the
confined limits of our shoulder-high tent. In half-an-hour
the work was done. Then came the preparation of a
mighty supper. Into the pot went the shredded fragments
of two onions, a handful of dried vegetables, odds and ends
of arrowroot and oatmeal, a lump of bovril, a seasoning of
Worcester sauce (all spoils from Trevor-Battye), and ulti
mately, when Garwood's jodel was heard on the slopes, half
a tin of Irish stew. Ye gods ! what a jorum it was ! and
how it and the fried slices of rich plum-pudding that
followed suited the complaint of two hungry mortals, whose
food for many days had been stringy reindeer or concen
trated rations ! The charmed, unsetting sun looked down
upon us, warmed the soles of our feet, and dried our
garments. The wind slept. It was an hour of peace
and perfect charm — light, colour, air, scenery, all fair and
pleasant to every sense, rare combination, nor in Spits
bergen only.
Such times do not long endure. The spell was broken
by a puff of wind that rattled the tent, harbinger of a gale
soon to follow. All our Spitsbergen camps were of neces
sity in exposed positions. We found no sheltering rocks,
whilst all hollow places were boggy. Dry ground was only
on protruding knolls, bare to every wind that chose to blow.
The gale that opened fire on us after midnight boomed against
our canvas walls and roof, and made the stretched ropes

148 SPITSBERGEN chap, x
sing like the strings of an ^Eolian harp. At first we doubted
whether the ropes would hold, but confidence grew with
experience. All the while the sun was hot, far too hot
for comfort in fur sleeping-bags. Light, heat, and noise
kept slumber long away, and made our waking corre
spondingly late.
Next day Gregory was expected from Advent Bay, but
we doubted his being able to bring round the boat in the
gale that continued to blow. So, fired by Garwood's de
scription of the interest of the view from the Trident's crest,
I set off with him to climb the central point of the three
ridges, whose precipitous north front falls to the Sassendal.
We mounted along the side of the valley, turned up a gorge
filled by a gentle snow-couloir, between the west and central
prongs of the Trident, and climbed to the col at its head,
whence an easy ridge led [to the top (1990 feet). For a time
we left the gale behind, and could hear it tearing over the
crags below, but when the plane-table was set up, the tempta
tion was too strong to be resisted, and up came the wind
to spoil our pleasure. Not that there was much fun this
day for Garwood ; he was suffering tortures from neuralgia,
which he bore with heroic fortitude.
Here at last we had a thoroughly intelligible and wide-
extending view, full of most valuable information, which
cleared up all manner of topographical puzzles. Bunting
Bluff and the other bluffs west of Advent Yale were all in
sight with their upper prolongations and high snows. We
could see almost down to Bolter Camp. Fox Peak was
hidden, but this was the only loss. More important than
these points, the correct position of which on my map I was
almost as much surprised as delighted to verify, was the
area to the south and east that lay open below. With our
backs upon the Sassendal, we had before us a long slope
and an undulating country below it, the form of whose sur-

chap, x THE TRIDENT 149
face was determined when its drainage ran down Advent
Vale. Now the Esker and Turnback rivers have cut back
and robbed most of these waters. This lower, undulating
country is bounded by the glaciers and snowy hills near
the Baldhead, which spread away eastward till they merge
in a high glacier region, practically an ice-sheet, apparently
stretching as far as the east coast. This ice-sheet sends several
glacier tongues down into Turnback Valley and its branches.
One of these, of gentle slope, seemed so easy of access at
the foot that we thought it might prove the best avenue of
approach to Agardh Bay. As yet we did not know of the
existence of Fulmar Valley, and were still labouring under
the belief that an ice-sheet must be crossed before we could
arrive at the east coast. The prospect was a noble one in
all directions, but the freezing wind robbed it of charm and
made study of it painful. An hour's work was all I could
endure. On first reaching the top we noticed a strange white bed
of cloud, all isolated, covering a level place in the midst
of the nev6 below the snow-pass to Agardh Bay. It was
a bright round silver cloud, resting like a bubble upon the
snow. When it lifted two giants were revealed, a man and
a graceful and beautifully-draped woman in floating lilac
garments. They were both about two hundred feet high, and
there were giant children with them, also dressed in lilac
drapery. They seemed to dance upon, or rather to float over,
a wonderful dark-blue carpet, laid in the midst of the snow
field. They moved very slowly, but with indescribable grace,
and the woman sometimes hovered over the man with her
veil falling in a glorious curve over her extended arm. As
we looked, they were gone, and in their place, in the midst
of the blue carpet, stood a magnificent tree, also lilac in
colour, with a great trunk and a huge extending top, in form
like one of Turner's pines. It also vanished, and other

iS° SPITSBERGEN chap, x
strange forms appeared and changed, coming and going
with mysterious rapidity. They were all varieties of a single
cloud, kept in one place by the eddying of the air and
casting the dark shadow, so much darker than itself, upon
the snow, which it almost touched with the point of its
lower extremity. It was a weird phenomenon and of rare
beauty, but even it failed to keep us on the freezing peak.
During the descent a white falcon was seen, soaring far
aloft, and a reindeer in the Sassendal, which made off the
moment he saw us.
Camp, when we returned to it, was still deserted, nor did
the closest scrutiny reveal signs of Gregory's approach. " He
cometh not," we said. The wind still raged and boomed,
blowing dust into the tent with horrid persistence, but the
canvas bravely resisted, and formed a delightful shelter when
the doors were closed. Later on the wind dropped, but then
all the sky clouded over and rain began to fall (July 12). Its
pattering on the roof was a sound of peace that lulled us
pleasantly to sleep.
Meanwhile Gregory was toiling up with the ponies and
sledges from Starvation Bluff in Sassen Bay. He had to
ford swollen rivers and to face the driving rain. It must
have been a miserable march. Williamson drove the second
pony. The two arrived when we were in the midst of our
deepest slumber. Then arose much cooking and setting of
things to rights, and not a little exchange of news, for a
steamer had come into Advent Bay before Gregory left and
brought mails from home — weekly editions of the Times,
illustrated papers, and letters. Sleep was banished while
other interests reigned, and Gregory told the tale of his
wanderings, much as it is recounted by him in the following
letter :—

CHAP. X

THE TRIDENT

151

GREGORY STARTING FOR ADVENT BAY.

" Yambuya Camp, fuly 9, 1 896.
" I ended my last letter thinking that three hours later
our boat would be taking it back from Sassen Bay, and
that I should be on my way inland with two strong sledges,
which would enable us to cross the glaciers to the East
Coast. But the chances for delay in this country are in
finite. It had been arranged that our boat should be at a
given station in Sassen Bay on Friday afternoon, and I
accordingly left Waterfall Camp on Saturday afternoon, feel
ing no doubt that the boat had already arrived. When,
therefore, while wading a river, my pockets were filled with
water and my biscuits turned into sop, I did not mind ;
and only laughed when the enterprising pony Spits seized
the opportunity of their being spread out on the sledge-end
to dry, to devour the lot. I was a little more concerned
when, on arriving at the trysting-place, I found no sign of
the boat. There was much loose drift ice in the mouth of
the bay, but Pedersen, in his broken fo'castle English, de
clared that no weather could be more favourable for the

152 SPITSBERGEN chap, x
run up the bay. I therefore decided to stay on the shore,
and wait at least twenty-four hours for the boat. I had no
sleeping-bag, but as the night was fine that mattered little.
I was more disconcerted by the fact that our only food
consisted of three odd fragments of Emergency Food and
six small sticks of chocolate.
"This supply I resolved to keep till the next afternoon,
when I intended to share it with Pedersen, and, on the
strength of it, march back to Waterfall Camp. I tried to
shoot some birds, but after knocking the feathers out of an
eider drake at a distance twenty yards too great for a kill,
I had no other chance of a shot. There were, it is true, a
couple of snow-buntings resting on the cliff, but they sang to
me so merrily that I could not kill them.
" For once in a way the sun shone gloriously, and I had
also the good luck of a magnificent view. At the head of
the bay was the broad Post Glacier discharging icebergs
into the fjord; on the shore opposite me rose the vertical
stratified cliffs of Temple Mountain. The enjoyment of the
scenery helped me to forget that it was cold, and that the
water of two rivers and a dozen brooks was gradually
evaporating from my clothes. At midnight I wrapped
myself in a sledge cover and tried to sleep. But the air,
though delightfully crisp and bracing when I was moving,
was so chilled by floe and glacier, that I was soon far too
cold to sleep. When my teeth commenced to chatter, I
thought it time to go for a walk, as I dreaded another bout
of fever. Just as I was preparing to start, at two A.M., I faintly
heard three shots fired in rapid succession. I woke Pedersen,
who, having^his sleeping-bag, had been sound asleep since
nine o'clock. We both heard a fourth shot, to which we
replied by one as[ a signal, and then I sent Pedersen in
search. The suggestion of food was enough to start the
hungry hunter in all haste. By this stroke of luck I felt

chap, x THE TRIDENT 153
sure of news and food in the future, as well as of the
immediate benefit of a warm sleeping-bag. Inside it I
was more comfortable, but was too hungry to sleep. I
turned out all my pockets in the vain hopes of finding
some stray scrap of something eatable, and then counted
again the sticks of chocolate. I dared not eat any of these,
as we might have to rely on them to act as a stimulus for
the wade back through the bogs of Sassen Valley. At ten
o'clock Pedersen came back. Instead of meeting our boat
party, he had found that of Baron de Geer, who had
generously sent me some reindeer meat, cheese and biscuits.
There was ample supply for one man for two days, so I re
solved to leave Pedersen here to watch for the boat party, and
myself return to Waterfall Camp, and thence march overland
to Yambuya. Pedersen and I therefore ate as small a breakfast
as possible of biscuits and cheese. I waited till the after
noon to see if the boat came in or the ice packed with the
change of tide. At four P.M., leaving a note for the boat party,
I started back for Waterfall Camp, arriving there ravenously
hungry at 7.30. I had one mighty meal to clear off arrears,
a long sleep, and then another big feed to lay in a reserve
for the future. At 5.30 P.M. on the Monday, I was ready
for what Conway called the colossal march to Advent Bay.
This had taken five days to do on the way over, but then it
was unknown ground, and we had the sledges. It had now
to be done in one, partly in hope of reaching Advent Bay
in time to catch the boat, partly because I could not carry
much with me, and sleeping in the open air without a
blanket does not agree with me.
" I left Waterfall Camp at 5.30, and started up the Esker
Valley for Brent Pass. I carried with me a little Emergency
Food and fried reindeer meat, but trusted mainly to Root's
Cuca Chocolate, which, as it does not make one thirsty, I
find the best thing for forced marching.

154 SPITSBERGEN chap, x
"A sharp walk of two and a half hours brought me to
Brent Pass, where I rested for half-an-hour to take food,
sketch the hills to the south, and write out notes on the
geological facts seen during the ascent. I had intended
to shorten the journey by keeping along the right bank of
the river, and fording this near Advent Bay. But one glance
at its channel showed me that I must cross at once ; for the
powerful sun of the previous days had melted so much snow,
that the river volume was many times greater than when we
had crossed before. Fortunately the river channel here was
a broad stony plain, more than a mile in width, and over
it the river ran in many channels. I forded fifty-two before
reaching the ice-foot on the left bank ; many of the channels
were small, but several were fifty feet wide, and one came
up to my waist. Fortunately after this a narrow band of
ice ran along the bank of the river, and over this I was
able to make rapid progress. But as the river channel nar
rowed, the stream occupied it all, except for a few shoals
in the middle, and I was driven on to the rough, boggy rock-
strewn floor of the valley. Numerous deep gullies were cut
through this to the level of the river ; some of these still
contained much snow, and the snow bridges were strong
enough to let me cross the rivers without the nuisance of
a wade. Farther on the walking was better, for the ground
was dry and stony, and by a spurt I reached the old
terminal moraine at n.30. I had taken some biscuits from
our food cache at Sunshine Camp, and I rested on the
moraine till midnight, nibbling kola-biscuits and chocolate,
and sketching. The geology here gave me the clue to the
structure of the whole valley. So I went on again re
freshed by my half-hour's rest. An hour's walk took me
to a point level with Cairn Camp, where I found myself
on an old marine beach, so that the fjord once ran up

chap, x THE TRIDENT 155
to this point, and probably the old glacier then entered the
sea here.
"The next point of interest was finding a Turnstone
[Strepsilas interpret), which has been twice before seen in
Spitsbergen (by Dr. Malmgren and Professor A. Newton),
but so far as I know has never yet been collected here.
I had no gun, and so could not secure the specimen,
which was irritating. I had now seen twenty-four of
the twenty-seven reliably recorded species of birds ; all
but the Turnstone were of little interest. Finding this
bird so early in the year shows that it probably breeds in
Spitsbergen. " After this I had six rivers to wade, one from each of the
valleys that come down from the plateau between Ice Fjord
and Bell Sound. The smallest of the six rivers had twenty-
two channels, excluding those which I could jump. Twice
I was nearly knocked over by the force of the current, for
the streams were powerful, and I was getting tired. So far
I had taken very little food, and only rested twice, but now
it became necessary to take a rest of ten minutes once an
hour, and eat some chocolate at every rest. But Advent
Bay lay below me, and the tents of Yambuya were in sight.
At 5.45 a.m. my hulloo woke Studley, and frightened away
an Arctic fox, which was stealing reindeer meat from the
rack beside the camp. Studley at once made me some tea,
and while sipping this he told me news of the rearguard, and
I told him the story of our traverse to the Sassen Valley,
and of my walk back. This had taken me twelve and a half
hours in all, including one hour and forty minutes' rest.
The weather had been so glorious, the scenery so fine and
the geology so interesting, now that the mists had cleared
away and I could get more than glimpses of the country,
that the walk had been delightful. The only thing that

i56

SPITSBERGEN

CHAP. X

marred its pleasure was to find at the end, that, instead of
being able to return the same evening to Sassen Bay, I
was doomed to a few days at Advent Bay. And if there
is one thing that does not suit me, it is work in rear
guard camp."

ADVENT POINT CAMP.

CHAPTER XI
FULMAR VALLEY
WE were now supplied with strong sledges and needful
food. The onward way lay open ; but both Gregory
and the ponies needed rest, so the start had to be postponed
twenty-four hours. Garwood and I used the interval to
revisit Brent Pass. The walk was dull. We followed the
right bank of the Esker Valley and had to wade many knee-
deep streams. A marked change had come over the place
since our former visit. Snow-beds and snow-bogs had
entirely disappeared. The land was drier and harder. A
distance that had been covered in the most laborious march
we made, which utterly exhausted the ponies and wearied
us, now only required two hours or so of steady plodding.
Under any circumstances we could cover in a day (if un
loaded, and with no survey or geological work to be done)
three times the amount of ground that ponies can drag
sledges over. Hence the apparent slowness of our progress.
Clearly by the middle of July conditions are much improved
for travel in the interior of Spitsbergen.
The day was cloudy, with heavy and rather high clouds,
which cast a pall of gloom on the dreary landscape. Yet
there were fine effects to reward an observant eye. A soft
grey cloud lying on the Trident dyed its precipice-headed
bluffs with a purple, so rich and deep, that it seemed more
than any mere light and shadow could produce. Distances
seen beneath the cloudy roof showed continual and most
beautiful changes, as, for instance, down towards Sassen

158 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
Bay, where strange lights played on the water, and gleamed
up under the mist, or at the head of the Sassendal, where
Rabot Glacier glimmered like oxidised silver set in ridges
of bronze. The brown plain between was always mysterious,
with quick alterations in apparent size, whilst now and again
eddying cloud-columns dipped down on to it, dissolved, and
disappeared. At 7.45 p.m. (July 13) we finally quitted Bucking-horse
Camp, leaving a pile of provisions, geological specimens, tins
of spirit, and other supplies to await the return. Two skuas
remained in charge, greedily picking the backbone of a rein
deer. They are very wide-awake, these skuas, and not in
the least shy. A number of fulmar petrels came along,
bending in the direction we were taking. Their swift, easy
motion and strong confidence of wing are always a delight
to behold. Overhead the cloud-roof was denser than ever,
but it was poised high above the tops of all the peaks, and
cast on the whole landscape that dark rich pall of colour
which so dignifies these valleys, diminishing indeed their
appearance of breadth, and shortening distances, but at the
same time raising the bald hills into the likeness of mighty
mountains. Descending the last slope below camp, we trailed along
the plain some distance from the vallev side, thus winning
the best travelling ground we had vet seen in Spitsbergen,
and gaining a view far back over Sassen Bay into the hills
behind it. There a large valley, running inland, north
westward from Skans Bay, prolongs the Sassendal depression
far off towards Dickson Bay, whilst the hills on either side
of it imitate the forms of Temple Mountain on the right and
Sticky Keep on the left. As usual I was soon alone in the
bare valley, out of sight of the others. It seemed barer and
more uncanny than ever this gloomy evening. A strange cry
came from over the river, like the cry of an abandoned child.

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 159
Then there was a sound in the air close above my head as of
the rushing by of some great creature, some " ghost from an
enchanter fleeing." A petrel had flashed past. All was still
that the eye beheld. Hour followed after hour, and the view
was ever the same. Across the valley the same long, low
line of bare flat-topped hill ; on this side always the staged
fronts of the Trident, flat-bedded, each bluff repeating the
forms of the bluff before, and striped with regular lines of
exactly similar snow-couloirs — Peak Milne-Edwards in front
coming so slowly nearer. At last, at midnight, the corner of
the Turnback Valley was reached, and a gloomy prospect
opened over a short wide inlet into the hills, with a broad
flooded river flowing down the midst in many channels, and
in places almost covering the half-mile of stony flat that
intervenes between the gentle bog-slopes of either bank.
Many small snowy side valleys were revealed, one of which
we believed led to our pass. We afterwards discovered that
it was not the one we had noticed from the Trident ; but for
the present we were deceived. The nearer we came to it
the less we liked its appearance. Formerly it contained a
glacier, which deposited a quantity of moraine all about its
wide snout ; this rough accumulation blocked the lowest half-
mile of the hollow. Behind came the shrunken tongue of
ice leading up to the great sheet. It was a miserable outlook.
There appeared to be bogs to cross, the wide river to wade,
a long stone-fan to ascend, and then the moraines to scramble
over — a combination of all the nastiest things that can be
put in the way of sledges.
Into the water we plunged. It was too swift and deep
where I tried it, and carried me off my legs. A better place
was found, and over we went from one shallow to another
with broad deep channels between. In the deepest of
these both sledges went gaily floating down stream, rolling
over and over ; whilst in the rapidest place, where the icy

160 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
water rushed in waves up our legs, Spits took it into her
head to stop and drink, and no struggles of Garwood could
get her to stir. There were marks on the banks showing
that the waters had recently, in the hot days, been at least
a foot deeper, so we were to that extent lucky. The moraine
when reached was less toilsome than we forebode. A dry
and fairly smooth hollow was found leading into it, and
there we camped (282 feet), for farther in was no grazing
for the ponies. Moreover Spits had begun to go lame from
rheumatism, and appealed for rest. She was now so much
one of the family that she really spent most of her time in
camp, with an eye constantly on the alert for biscuits. She
would put her head in at the tent door, or rummage our
things over with her nose, trying this and that. A bundle
of tie-on labels attracted her special attention, and she never
could quite make up her mind whether it was edible or
no. On the march she co-operated with us rather than was
driven, and had her own ideas about the way. If she was
crossed, and led contrary to her judgment into a trouble
some place, she would halt and look round reproachfully,
as though to say, " I knew it." Her own opinion was by
no means always right. When she made for some grey
streak of grass, thinking it to betoken a dry place, and lo !
it was bog, no one could more emphatically assert annoy
ance than she did. When hopelessly bogged she would not
struggle, but, remaining quite still, would look round for
help, and so wait till it came. Bergen at first had none of
these arts and graces. He was a mere bundle of nerves,
shy of everything and hard to tempt even with biscuit. He
came to trust some of us a little by slow degrees, but the
least unexpected tap or glint of metal would put him into
a paroxysm of terror. On the other hand, he did not lose
his head in the bogs, and pulled his load without fuss and
with much energy if everything about him was normal.

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 161
When camp was pitched and the day's survey completed
we had a great discussion about the route to be followed.
We still did not realise that we had come to the wrong
glacier, but we knew enough to argue that the pass, at the
foot of which we were encamped, would not lead to the east
coast at all, but only take us over into the valley (Fulmar
Valley) on the other side of Peak Milne-Edwards. Pedersen,
however, had related a tradition that this pass leads to
Agardh Bay, but now we were come to it we more than ever
doubted the accuracy of the information. Ponies could go
no farther this way, and we must drag one sledge on our
selves. If with that labour we only reached the next valley
we should be fooled, for the ponies (now we were over the
river) could drag both sledges round as far as that by way of
the Sassendal, and save us the trouble. The decision come to
was to climb one of the neighbouring peaks next day, and
have a good look round before actually plunging into the
difficult area of snow.
Never had we camped where there was less grazing for
the ponies. The moraine itself was apparently almost barren.
The hill-side beyond it was plentifully covered with the vege
tation that grows on wet bogs, but with this the ponies would
have nothing to do ; with fear and trembling, therefore, we
were constrained to permit them to wander each with a
stone hobbled at the end of a long rope to his fore-leg.
Not that we were afraid of Spits making off on her own
account. She was rather inclined to come into the tents
and make herself at home, but she always followed Bergen,
and his record was bad. He bolted the first day we landed,
and he left us in a most informal manner at Bolter Camp.
He had probably been ill treated by his late owner, and re
garded the human species with distrust. Of late he had
begun to be less hostile, and would even move a step to
take a biscuit if quietly offered to him. The taming pro-

162 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
cess went slowly forward, and we thought that after a feed
of oats the two might be spared together to go cadging
around for food on the hillside. They were accordingly
led away and turned loose. What was our surprise, an
hour after we had gone to sleep, to find them both come
stumbling over the tent ropes, Bergen leading the way !
They preferred our company and occasional plants on the
moraine to anything the boggy hillside yielded. The morn
ing found them close to camp, and almost warm in their
greeting when the hour for harnessing came.
" The morning," I write, the result of habit ; it was really
the late afternoon, for we did not actually leave camp till
7.30 P.M., and then not for a peak, but to return down
Turnback Valley to the Sassendal. The cause of this change
of plan was, of course, the weather, which was so densely
cloudy, that to ascend for a view was mere fatuity. Further
reflection confirmed the opinion formed at supper, and we
unanimously agreed that our right course was to continue
the ascent of the Sassendal as long as possible, and to take
the last considerable side valley that headed off in the Agardh
Bay direction. In this the event proved our justification.
We vowed to make as long a march of it as possible, and
to find our pass before camping, for we were all at last in as
good training as a man can be in Spitsbergen, with rather in
different and insufficient food, continual wettings, and a life
in the open air indeed, but in an air that depresses rather
than stimulates, and is wholly different from the bright
quickening atmosphere elsewhere associated with snow-
mountain regions. The ponies, too, were in better lasting
condition, and Spits's lameness had almost gone. It soon
became apparent that our wadings were not ended, indeed
we had this day more streams to ford than ever. If they
were not so wide as others we had crossed, some of them
were quite as deep, so that all of us were wet above the

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 163
knee ten minutes from the start, and remained wet the
whole day, with puddles of water squdging and plopping
inside the boots at every step. Besides streams there were
infinite dry, or almost dry, gullies to be crossed, each from
one to three yards deep, and with vertical sides, save
at intervals requiring to be sought, involving the sledges
in a zigzag route. Williamson, who is not over-burdened
with brains, was inclined to take the sledge he drove
straight across country, to its no small peril, for at one
moment it would be standing on its snout, at another on
its stern, whilst it frequently turned turtle. The iron
hooping we had nailed underneath preserved it from a
swift destruction. Garwood, who always acted as driver to
Spits, conducted the rough sledge which we bought from
the winterers for a few crowns. It was not much to look
at, but it held together wonderfully. Its chief defect was
a tendency to dig its nose into the ground, so that it often
acted more as a plough than a slider. Much pulling and
lifting thus befell, a work to which Gregory devoted the
best part of the day.
On the whole, the ground traversed was the best we
had yet passed, for the season was now visibly advancing ;
snow had almost left the valleys and melted out of the
gullies, so that snow-bogs were become things of the past,
and the soft area of soaking ground which we were wont
to find at the foot of every snow-couloir was either greatly
diminished or wholly dried. Instead of the snow-bogs were
the gullies I have described, with their steep soft sides of
powdered paper-shales ; whilst the place of the larger flat
snow-beds was marked by areas of soft sticky mud, seldom
more than ankle-deep, and generally avoidable. All this
mud, and, in fact, the ground everywhere, was cracked or
cracking into roughly hexagonal lumps and bosses, either
with or without vegetation growing in the cracks, according

1 64 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
to situation and the nature of the material. Every earthy
patch in Spitsbergen that we saw is characterised by this
phenomenon. Of course, as we had no rifle with us, the reindeer were
more numerous and stupid than ever. They came near in
sixes and fours, but there was never a fine head amongst
them. They seemed more than usually muddle-pated and
changeful of mind. On first beholding us they would
approach, deliberate, and come to the conclusion, "These
two-legged beasts are dangerous." With that they would
turn tail and hurry away. In half a minute doubt would
arise in their minds : " Perhaps they are not dangerous
after all ; " so back they would come to reconsider the
problem, never adhering for a hundred yards' trot to any
opinion or decision. Solitary bucks were the only exception
to this rule, and occasionally a mother with her fawn.
As usual I went ahead with the plane-table, and this day
kept the lead longer than usual, for few new points came
in sight, after rounding into the Sassendal, till the- time
for quitting it. A wilder sky than of wont roofed the valley ;
dark clouds came sweeping over just above the summits,
casting gloom upon the bare landscape, and every moment
threatening to pour down a deluge of rain, which never
actually fell. The march gave little incident and slight
variety of scenery, for there was always on the far side of
the valley the same changeless long rock-slope reaching
in one smooth widely bending curve from far up the Rabot
Glacier to Sassen Bay. On our side, blunt-ended bluffs
followed one another, all built alike, with the same regular
succession of strata emerging at unvarying distances above
one another, and forming a series of shoulders, ledges, and
knees. Yet as one looked down the Sassendal, this same
row of bluffs produced a more striking and less monotonous
effect than might be expected, thanks to the valley's wide

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 165
curve and the variety thus introduced by perspective. The
last view backwards, from the corner of Fulmar Valley,
embracing the whole extent of the Sassendal, was dignified
and large. At the corner an intrusive sheet of igneous rock,
cutting a little crookedly through the beds along the east
side of Fulmar Valley, introduced a slight novelty into the
mountain architecture.
It was a relief to find a big river emerging from Fulmar
Valley, for it proved that this was no mere short gorge
leading steeply up to a high snow-pass or plateau. In fact, the
Sassendal's river above the junction became relatively small,
and flowed so smoothly that the opposite hill was reflected
from its waters, a new thing to see in this island of torrents.
It drains only the Rabot Glacier, a large one indeed, but
glaciers do not here supply torrents so copious as those
which at this time are filled by the meltings of the lower
snows and the oozings of boggy hill-sides. Below the glacier's
snout was still a huge ice-foot a mile or more wide and about
three miles long, the most considerable example of frozen
snow-bog we had yet beheld. A fairly wide rim of muddy
rather than rocky moraine intervened between the clear ice
of the glacier and this ice-foot. As the corner of the Fulmar
Valley was approached the topography of the Rabot Glacier
became better apparent, and two large tributaries were dis
tinguishable coming in round corners from the north, where
a great neve area must be hidden ; but I was in no condition
of mind to heed closely what might be the topography thither
ward, for the moments of turning the wide corner were
moments of suspense.
The chief object of our journey was to investigate a
complete belt of country across Spitsbergen from sea to sea.
Unless we crossed the island ourselves, this could not be
accomplished. If it were accomplished, we might consider
ourselves successful. If it were not accomplished, any

1 66 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
success we might attain could only be partial. This corner
was the critical point. What kind of a valley should we
find ? Poniable or not poniable ? Would there be a long
glacier to surmount ? — a high snow-field to cross ? Some
kind of a snow-pass we expected. Its position was the
important consideration. Every mile it lay farther east the
better, for we could push our base on, and thus diminish
the length of the final rush. Of course if you can start a
sledge on a smooth, gently sloping ice or snow sheet, and
the surface is in such condition that the runners will glide
over it, advance is easy. But our experience of Spitsbergen
snow-fields was utterly discouraging. The snout of no inland
glacier we had seen was at all easy of access. It would take
two days' hard work merely to hoist a sledge and its load
on to the foot of such glaciers, whilst a mile a day would be
rapid progress over such snow-fields, for men and ponies
could not have gone a yard.
Suspense and keen curiosity were the predominant
partners in my mental condition as I hastened towards the
corner. Flights of fulmar petrels kept passing along, and
all turned up the valley. This, then, was their way to the
east coast. At last the intervening angle was turned, and the
desired view opened. It was a joyous surprise. The valley
was wider than we had dared to hope — the widest tributary
of the Sassendal — and it stretched away back to a distant
turning in a true line for Agardh Bay. Fully half our remain
ing route was in sight, and no neve closed the prospect, whilst
only the snouts of side glaciers protruded on the sight. The
more of these the merrier, for the big torrent had to be
accounted for, and if it came from the valley's side, it had
not to be supplied at its head. Overjoyed, I turned back to
meet my friends. They were far behind. First came a
series of reindeer, preceding them like videttes, then, longo
intervallo, the phlegmatic Williamson with Bergen and one

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 167
sledge, both utterly bored, and taking a line like a Roman
road, straight over every obstacle. At last the others came
up, and we went on together. A new spirit entered into all ;
we vowed we would see the whereabouts of the pass before
pitching camp.
Little had we thus far cared what the scenery of the
Fulmar Valley might be ; but as we advanced up it we had
time for observation, for the way was long. Of all Spits
bergen's dreary dales, it must assuredly be the dreariest. It
is the highway for every wind of heaven, so that snow never
lies deep in it, and the ground is naked and less wet than
usual. Sparse indeed is its vegetation, and late to put forth ;
the flowers were fully three weeks behind the Sassendal's,
and many were only just blossoming which had already
faded elsewhere. But this dryness and bareness of the land
only made advance easier. Had it not been for the many
side glaciers and the consequent number of streams to be
waded, the walking would have been almost pleasant. As
it was we pegged on doggedly, and even the ponies seemed
to share our temper. Garwood larded the lean earth with
puns more plentifully than usual, and no one complained
even when, after catching and bottling some insect, he de
clared that we were the most agreeable party possible,
because we put every living thing we met into good spirits.
On we went, gleefully watching the shrinkage of the
river as stream after stream was crossed, and never a snow
field appeared at the end of the vista. At last some one
was even bold enough to suggest that there might be no
snow-pass to get over at all, and that we might take the
ponies all the way to Agardh Bay. Every one objected
that this was impossible for an infinity of reasons, because
each hoped it might be true, and feared the disappointment
of the rising hope. I alone was in pitiable plight, for the
valley twisted all the reference points of my survey so swiftly

168 SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
out of sight that the plane-table had to be set up every half-
mile in order not to lose connection with the country left
behind. Thus I fell farther and farther to the rear. It was
with no little satisfaction that at length I beheld the others
halt, and saw in the far distance pitching of tents, and ponies
turned to graze. Surely they cannot there be actually on the
pass ! Nor, in fact, were they ; they had but reached the
last visible grazing patch, a miserably barren ground, with
low plants every here and there, a yard or two apart, in
the narrow desert between the river and the debris slopes.
When camp was pitched and cooking in progress under
Garwood's skilled management, Gregory went on round the
corner, and returned with excellent tidings. There was
moraine stuff from a large and perhaps final side glacier to
be crossed, and that appeared to be the last impediment.
There was no sign of snow-field to be passed, nothing that
need involve the ponies being left behind. Thus encouraged,
the day's concluding work of writing, map drawing, cata
loguing, and the like went swiftly forward. It was 4.30 A.M.
(July 15) when Delusion Camp (308 feet) was pitched, and at
11.30 the last closed his note-book, and turned over to woo
the difficult god of sleep, with a milk-white cloud and a
howling wind around the fluttering tents. The canvas
pressing on the poles made them bend and quiver, and
they in turn passed down their vibrations to the springv
ground, which trembled beneath us, as though shaken by
a series of small earthquake waves. The wind was a matter
of no importance, but the fog was serious. It endured hour
after hour, and was as dense as ever when we awoke, so
that to go forward surveying was impossible.
Not till 10.45 P-M- were we able to set out, and then
slapping our sides and blowing on our fingers, for the
air was bitterly cold. The caravan plunged at once into a
moraine area, the largest and most troublesome we had met ;

AN EASY SPELL IN FULMAR VALLEY.

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 169
for a glacier tongue descending from the high ice-sheet west
of the valley had so frequently changed, its mind, advancing
and retreating, that all the valley bottom and sides for about
a mile were piled with its rubbish entangled with broken
pieces of ice-foot. To make matters worse there was fossil
ice beneath this moraine, preserved from melting by its
stony cover. The mud and stones on the ice were in a
loose condition, cracking in some places, moving viscously
down steep slopes in others. It was rough walking every
where, and, of course, most difficult for ponies. Rusty red
puddles filled occasional hollows ; torrents meandered about,
tunnelling and emerging at the most unexpected points. A
considerable river flowed along the bottom of the valley in
a gorge of ice through the midst of this hideous chaos.
The survey kept me one side of the river ; exigencies of
the ground forced the caravan over to the other. They were
advancing at last with fair speed over a snow-bed which, it
was apparent from my position, would soon land them in
difficulties, for it narrowed away to nothing and ended on
an ice-slope, plunging direct into the river. The foolish Carl
was leading the way, and on he went, with all the phlegmatic
carelessness of a Balti coolie, till both he, the pony, and the
sledge began sliding downhill. It was all that Garwood
and Gregory could do to save them from perdition. After
watching this incident from afar off I rounded over a last
high mound of boulder-clay, and lo ! a horrid view burst
upon me. Hoping to see the pass close at hand, I beheld
instead only the interminable valley slowly bending round
and stretching away. If it had been desolate before, it now
became of a yet more dreadful desolation, surpassing anything
I ever saw or imagined. No view could be more simple.
In the midst was a river flowing between banks of ice ; on
either hand long slopes of naked debris stretched up in
unbroken sweep to a straight hill crest just edged with snow.

i7° SPITSBERGEN chap, xi
There were no buttresses, hardly any gullies, no precipices
or emerging rocks, and no peaks above. The whole thing
bent round in a slow curve. " Here indeed," I thought,
" Nature ends." The worst feature in the view remains to
be mentioned ; it was a wall of ice that blocked the valley's
head, the snout presumably of some great glacier we should
have to surmount.
All the happy auguries of the previous day were dis
proved ; the worst seemed to lie before us. I gazed upon
the scene with fathomless disgust, but just then a gleam of
sunshine broke through the wild black clouds, a golden gleam
of the midnight sun, that glinted off the river and the ice-foot
behind and gilded the brown moraine, making an island of
glory in the midst of the bleak and dreary wilderness. A
little snow-bunting settled beside me and cheerfully chirped
his lark-like notes. It was the happiness of a moment.
Darkness and gloom swiftly returned as I crossed the river
by a snow bridge and rejoined my companions (16th July),
just when they were quitting the moraine chaos and expecting
an easier spell.
They were doomed to swift disappointment. Nowhere
in the world can there be a worse patch of ground to
travel over than what lay before us. It looked so smooth
and easy — the gentle slopes, the neatly macadamised floor —
but it was a deceit, a delusion, and a snare. The whole
thing was a soft bog, a mere foundationless mixture of mud
and stones, into which the beasts plunged deep, frequently
sticking so fast that one had to be employed to haul the
other out. We tried high up and we tried low down — it
was the same thing. There was nothing solid anywhere for
a hoof to rest on. It was a question of wading through the
stiff mixture with hurried pace, for the longer you rested
on any spot, the deeper you sank in. If matters could have
been made worse, the rain that chose this moment for

chap, xi FULMAR YALLEY 171
falling would have effected the result, but we were beyond
caring even for a deluge. A hideous draught blew along
the rut and drove the rain before it. There was practically
no vegetation on the bog slopes, save here and there in
patches, where wet lumps of brilliant-coloured moss, red,
yellow, brown, and green, emphasised spots more than
usually moist.
When the ponies were almost dead-beat, we reached the
ice-foot below the glacier wall. It was surprisingly small
for so great a glacier front, and small was the river flowing
from the ice. There was something quite unusual about
the glacier too. It had hardly any moraine, and it ended
so abruptly, more like a wall of ice built across a valley
than the end of an ice-river flowing into it. The ice-foot
was in fact formed not by the glacier in front, but by a
smaller one on our left. The great glacier contributed
merely a few little cascades, whilst away to the right, round
a corner, were indications of another stream coming in.
We afterwards learned that this flows from a lake at the foot
of yet another side glacier, which was wholly hidden from
us by an intervening ridge. If we had gone up Turnback
Glacier, and had steered our way correctly over the ice-sheet,
it is down this glacier we should have come. The ponies
were almost dropping with fatigue, so here camp had to be
pitched on the first flat place. Dry places there were not.
We set the tents up in a bog (370 feet).

GOOD GOING.

CHAPTER XII

THE IVORY GATE

I WAS too excited about the next stage of advance to await
the process of tent-pitching, but went straight on up the hill
to my left, round whose foot the glacier bent at its termination.
It would be impossible to exaggerate the dejection <Si mind
which at this time possessed us all. Obviously the glacier
was a very large one. The probability was that we must
mount to its head, find a pass over, and descend on the
other side, carrying all our things and spending nights in the
open in this hideous weather. No one said anything, and
I set forth in grimmest humour. The way was over the
ice-foot and a torrent too broad to be jumped and too deep
in its ice channel to be waded. I turned the end of it where
it emerged from its glacier and so reached the foot of my
hill, the ascent of which lay up debris poised in a condition

chap, xn THE IYORY GATE 173
of more stable equilibrium than usual. Up I went, round
ing gradually to the right to overlook the glacier. Suddenly,
on turning a ridge, behold there was Agardh Bay before
me and Wybe Jans Water beyond it, dotted over with speckles
and streaks of ice, sparkling in sunlight, and yet farther off
in bluest distance the hills of Edge Island, from Whale
Point northward, with beds of creamy cloud lying on their
crests, casting blue shadows. The way was quite easy before
us, and the distance not great. The transformation of emotion
within me was as swift as it was delightful. I yelled wildly
down to camp and waved my cap before setting forward
from Prospect Point (900 feet) to pursue the ascent of the
long ridge whose back I had now gained.
With every upward step the view became more interesting
and wonderful. It was not the snout, but only the side of
the great glacier that opposed our advance. The peculiar
appearance of the wall was thus explained. The snout de
scends to Agardh Bay and spreads around into a huge oval.
We had only to climb the wall, an easy matter, cross the
domed glacier and descend the other side, when a few miles
of flat though doubtless boggy ground would alone intervene
between us and the east coast. Our problem was solved.
We had come straight towards our goal by the directest
route. The way had been long and often unpleasant, but it
was the right way, and does not admit of improvement.
The reaction from disgust and dejection to triumph and
delight was an indescribable joy. Prospect Ridge led upward,
and I could not choose but follow on. It became broad and
of gentle slope. Shoulder succeeded shoulder, and each was
a goal in turn. The view developed in all directions, and the
wild clouds disclosed great domes of snow and, southward,
peaks but half revealed. But it was ever to the blue fjord
that the eye returned, the wide blue fjord, stretching so far
away, with its ice floes, and the dark purple hills that framed

174 SPITSBERGEN chap, xii
it, and those remotest mountains beyond, .-with flushes of
yellow light amongst them. Broader and flatter grew the
ridge, its surface like the surface of a stony field, soft and
level. I kept to the right edge of it, overlooking the great
glacier — so white and wide, undulating down from broad
snowy domes, one behind the other, on some of which the
sun always shone. There was no proper neve. The highest
and remotest domes were still of ice, naked save in hollows
and on slopes where snow had drifted ; for here the first
frost turns the sopping snow to ice without need of long-
continued pressure to change the structure of the mass. In
the midst of the glacier at various levels were lakes of so
beautiful a blue that the patches of blue sky above were not
more full of colour and transparency.
The higher I rose the wilder and more furious blew the
wind, carrying me along. Hundreds of fulmar petrels were
in the air all about the ridge, apparently playing with the
gale. It seemed as though the place belonged especially to
them. Onward I went, for there was always another step
in the ridge ahead. There was no snow on the ground,
though lower places all about were thickly ice-draped. Wind
keeps this exposed area free, and flowers grow upon it,
especially poppies and the ubiquitous Dry as Octopetala. A
single reindeer met me in the way and swiftly retreated. At
last even the petrels were left behind. A long final slope led
me to the top — a wide flat space whence cliffs dropped away
on two sides to the great glacier's upper area, an apparently
limitless extent of purest white — not flat, but ever rising to
dome after dome, one beyond another, far as the eye could
reach. I halted, leaning against the gale, and with difficulty
set up the plane-table, holding it with both hands and spread
ing wide the legs. My summit was higher than the Sassendal
bluffs, and only surpassed by the snow domes. Unfortu-

chap, xii THE IYORY GATE 175
nately I had with me neither aneroid nor camera. Inland
the storm was raging, and the dark clouds gathered and
hurried along over or upon the hills. To the south were
peaks more or less known to me. Some we saw from Fox
Peak, others from Sticky Keep. They rise in a region of
glacier. A rainbow was standing on the glacier foot, whose
wide extension I could now well discern, with the serac crest
that seemed to overhang the face toward Agardh Bay. All
the region east of the watershed was much snowier than
west. The land and low valleys about Agardh Bay were
as snowy as Advent Vale a month before. One could not
stay long at work in such a gale. It blew all warmth and
feeling from the hands. On these occasions only habit
enables a man to face working at all ; mere will would
not suffice. Each line drawn upon the map is won at a
measurable cost of pain. When I could stand no more, I
hurried under the cliff's shelter, and rubbed life back into
fingers and arms. Then the view sank into the mind, never
to be forgotten — one of the greatest and most memorable
prospects I have ever beheld — oh ! the glorious world, where
man has no place and there is no sign of his handiwork,
where Nature completes her own intentions unhindered and
unhelped by him. Such pure snows no Alpine height
presents, nor such pale-blue skies, nor that marvellous,
remote, opalescent sea with its white flocks and its yet
more distant shore. No Alpine outlook penetrates through
such atmosphere, so mellow, so rich. The Arctic glory is
a thing apart, wilder, rarer, and no less superb than the
glory of any other region of this beautiful world.
Returning to camp was a fierce struggle, for now the
gale was in my teeth ; but the slope was with me, and I
grew warm again in the contest. By the fluttering tents
food was in an advanced stage of preparation. The herald
of glad tidings is always well received. After some hours'

176 SPITSBERGEN chap, xii
sleep and a monumental breakfast we were ready to make
our final rush for Agardh Bay. The main issue of the
expedition was to be decided, and all looked forward to
the coming hours with high hopes and fixed determina
tions. Sacks were loaded with provisions, cameras stored
with films. Everything was in order save one detail. In
the freezing wind on the lowest end of Prospect Ridge
I had dropped unknowingly the screw that fixed my plane-
table to its legs. The march had therefore to be begun
with an ascent to find it, only a slight detour and not
disadvantageous, seeing that the holding of a conclave on
the question of route in a position overlooking the best
part of the way thus became feasible. The missing screw
was found, firmly trodden into the soft debris, a good
omen, I thought, for the day's success. We were, in fact,
in for a run of luck. The view was not so fine as on
my previous visit, but it was clear enough for practical
purposes, and over Agardh Bay it was most beautiful.
While we gazed, a stream of sunlight poured upon the great
white spread of glacier below, and the end of a rainbow
again stood up over the ice. Edge Land was clearer, and
sky and sea above and below it were striped in cloud and
shadow of gold and blue. At 12.30 a.m. (July 17), exactly
one month from the day we first sighted Spitsbergen, we
made our final start, running down a steep debris slope, and
enjoying a short but swift foot-glissade into the snow gully
between the glacier and the hillside. The glacier was
entered, without difficulty, by a trough between seracs,
and the long passage over it commenced. As some one
said, we were " on a pukka glacier at last, with rivulets on
its surface, crevasses, moulins, and the whole Alpine bag of
tricks." Yet there is really no glacier in the Alps at all
like this Ivory Glacier, none so white, none so wide, none
ending in so strange a manner ; for when it quits its own

AGARDH BAY FROM THE IVORY GATE.

chap, xii THE IYORY GATE 177
proper hollow and emerges upon the open meeting-place
of valleys, it spreads abroad in all directions into a huge low
dome, on an oval plan, about three miles in diameter, and
some four hundred feet higher in the middle than around
the edge. The whole of this domed extension of the
Ivory Glacier has come down since 1870, for in that year
Heuglin records that the Fulmar Valley stretched back, green
and flat, from the head of Agardh Bay. Over this dome
lay our route — a novel kind of pass. We afterwards named
it the Ivory Gate, partly from a lovely section of veined
ice that gave us pleasure and partly from some ivory gulls
that frequented our camp. It was not a pass in the usual
sense. The actual col is buried somewhere under the ice,
and is probably about 400 feet above sea-level.
The surface of the glacier, as one made its acquaintance
more minutely, was not like the surface of a glacier in the
Alps. Winter snow, falling upon it, fills its hollows, and
water percolates the mass, which ultimately freezes, pro
ducing areas of ice of a loose and crystalline character,
ready to break up when trodden on into nut-sized granules
or prisms. Beds of snow, sodden with water, covered
large areas, and awaited the first frost to turn into ice.
Crevassed patches were dry enough, but where there were
no crevasses water lay about in a most uncomfortable
fashion, and freezing slush had often to be waded through.
But Garwood, our elected guide, led skilfully and reduced
all such annoyances to a minimum.
We bore away to our right so as to mount to the top
(646 feet) of the great terminal dome of the glacier, which
an hour and a half of smart walking sufficed to reach ; delay
being caused, as the desired point was neared, by a multitude
of crevasses, roofed with unstable archings of winter snow,
which had to be carefully tested before they could be used
for bridges. Our rope was of the frailest, odds and ends of
M

178 SPITSBERGEN chap, xii
cord pillaged from the tents at the last moment, and
hitched together, for our proper climbing rope had long
ago been made into sledge harness, and otherwise turned
to mean uses. We advanced gingerly, therefore, in doubt
ful places, and only after much proving of the ground with
axe-thrusts. The view from the crown of the dome was indeed superb.
The immense white foreground, curving away to every outlook,
alone sufficed to give it singularity. In the whiteness were
infinite grades of tone, for all the surface was rippled and
broken by crevasses with blue edges. But it was away to
the distance that the eye chiefly turned, especially to the east,
to Agardh Bay and Wybe Jans Water, the gem of the pros
pect, and the goal of our toil. There, beyond the edge of the
visible ice, lay the mud flat, neither land nor water, burnished
bright over half its area, and becoming ever brighter farther
away, till the swamps ceased and water reigned alone,
water smooth with the utter calm of distance, bright with
the reflection of the golden over-clouded sky, and speckled
with dots and lines of ice and with great bergs stranded on
its shores. This entrancing prospect was before us for the
remainder of our way, at the end of an avenue of hills,
terminating on the left in Mount Agardh, a prominence of
some dignity of form, and on the right in a row of bluffs,
buttressing a snowy area, above which rose a group of
collared peaks, so called by us because of the thin vertical-
sided beds of intrusive rock, which cut horizontally through
them, near their summits, and form a protruding ring around
the neck of each.
Forward we went, but now down hill, towards Agardh
Bay, debating somewhat as to where the bay might reason
ably be considered to end, and how far along the flat it
was necessary for us to go in order to complete the crossing
of Spitsbergen. In our heart of hearts there was perhaps

chap, xii THE IYORY GATE 179
some unexpressed misgiving as to whether the descent from

DESCENDING THE FACE OF IVORY GLACIER.
the glacier to the plain might not after all present diffi
culties hard to overcome. The gently-curving surface of

180 SPITSBERGEN chap, xii
the ice always hid the edge, so that we could not make
any choice of point for quitting it. Quite suddenly we
came to the edge. The glacier ended in a cliff of surprising
steepness and 115 feet in height. A yard or two away a
tongue of snow led down, its lower part curving out of
sight. We followed it curiously and peered over. Another
tongue of snow sloped up and almost met it. A short
horizontal traverse across the steep ice-face was all that
was needed to join the two. Garwood cut a few mighty
steps into the ice, and over we went. A brief glissade
landed us on the moraine (220 feet high), which was of a
most peculiar character, like a ring of foot-hills below the
ice-cliff. Its substance consisted of ice, deeply buried under
a thick accumulation of stones, all small and rounded like the
pebbles of a beach, which in fact they were, as the geologists
will explain.
The exit from this peculiar region was made down a
narrow valley, which twisted about, and permitted us to
emerge on the almost flat valley-floor by a startlingly sudden
transition. There was no ice-foot to this singular glacier,
for the simple reason that there was hardly any water
issuing from it. It has no great cavern vomiting forth a
mighty torrent, but only here and there a driblet of a
stream which trickles down the face and, after a short
babbling race down a gently inclined shingle slope, oozes
over the muddy plain. We too ran down the shingle, yell
ing and jodeling, in the very culmination of joy, for all
the difficulties of our journey were overpassed, and all
doubts solved.
There were streams to be waded at once — what of it ? 
little cared we for streams, though the stickiest of mud
formed their beds. Through them we went, so as to get
away from the glacier, and gain a good view of its
monstrous end. The more we saw of it, the more we

THE TERMINAL MORAINE OF IHE IVORY GLACIER.

chap, xii THE IYORY GATE 181
admired our luck. We had actually chanced to hit the only
point whence it was possible to descend without infinite
difficulty and delay. At most points it could not be de
scended. At all other points it could only be descended
by cutting a staircase down some hundred feet or more of
perilously steep ice-wall. Descrying a little way off a small
patch of dry ground, I made for it, through half-a-dozen
streams, the others following delicately, carrying their boots
and stockings, and lifting high their feet to give them, turn
about, a momentary relief from the ice-cold water. On the
flat we lunched on a varied assortment of Emergency
tablets, biscuits, lime-juice nodules, bits of chocolate, ends
of Darbishire's smoked Westphalian ham, and a tin of jam.
We named the lunching place Darbishire's Ham, for the
patch of dry land was ham-shaped.
Then we wandered various ways, geologists geologising,
photographers photographing, surveyors surveying. Far out
on the plain we went to a last gravelly island, fragment of
an old raised beach, beyond which was nothing more but
hybrid stuff, with a watery surface and a muddy substance,
not strong enough to support, nor liquid enough to float
anything — a nameless quagmire which gradually merged
into the sea, whose stranded icebergs looked down upon it
like little hills. The view was less fine than from the glacier,
for the broad sea was now foreshortened into a line, and
Edge Land had either sunk utterly out of sight or become
wholly enveloped in clouds. There was hardly a living
thing in sight ; one glaucous gull came over, and an ivory
gull, a few fulmar petrels and a snow bunting. There
were the footprints of innumerable birds in the mud, and
of reindeer on harder ground. That was all. Flowers grew
sparsely where they had the chance to grow at all. Snow
lay low on the hills around, almost down to sea-level, on
north-facing slopes. Clouds played about the collar-peaks,

182 SPITSBERGEN chap, xii
and sometimes settled on Mount Agardh, but they rather
added to than detracted from the picturesqueness of the
scene, though we would gladly have been granted a clear
prospect up an apparently deep and considerable valley that
stretched inland to the west, and seemed to supply the
largest affluent to the waters emptying into the bay. The
largest rivers in Spitsbergen are not those that flow from
the biggest glaciers, but those which carry off melted snow
from bog and debris slopes, so that possibly this valley
leads some way into the country. Its direction suggested
that by it a traverse might be made to the head of Low
Sound. We spent in all three hours and a half on the east shore
of Spitsbergen. It was long enough. By seven o'clock we
were back at the moraine, and very soon began recrossing
the glacier. The fine view was now behind us, and for
the exhilaration of doubt and expectation was substituted
the solid satisfaction of success, a more enduring but a less
exciting emotion, and one by no means inconsistent with
such substantial comforts as a hot meal and a warm camp.
Towards these we stolidly trudged, finding crevasses a tedious
bore, and snow-slush a nameless discomfort. On the highest
point of the glacier-traverse (762 feet), a halt was made for
light refreshments and a last view of Agardh Bay, but much
of the glory had gone from it, for Edge Land was lost beneath
bright low domes of cloud. The sky alone remained infinitely
beautiful with its shining stripes of yellow, blue, and grey,
redoubled in the level sea. The collar-hills were clear, and
less picturesque for the clearness, which manifested their
rather mean dimensions. Only the curdled surface of the
enormous glacier retained its full dignity, and made its magni
tude even the more impressively felt since we had learnt its
width by the memorable process of walking across it. This
was our last halt. The remainder of the way was accom-

chap, xii THE IYORY GATE 183
plished without incident, and by ten in the morning we were
at camp, awakening the drowsy Carl, and clamouring for
food. The passage of the Ivory Gate of Spitsbergen was
accomplished, and the first stage of the return. Down-
pourings of rain, that presently set in, were the final
instance of the day's good luck, for they might have come
sooner.

CHAPTER XIII
RETURN TO WATERFALL CAMP
HOURS of awful weather followed. Wind howled and
rain was cast in sheets against our tents, which faith
fully kept it out, but made plenty of noise in so doing. The
doors were tightly closed. Little recked we of what went on
without till the careful Gregory, looking forth, discovered
our row of boots acting as so many rain-gauges. Boldly
rushing out into the slush with naked feet, he emptied them
and laid them on their sides, as boots in the open should
always be laid, a rule the thoughtless Carl never could learn.
It was a dreadful time for the ponies. To begin with, there
was almost nothing for them to eat and no solid ground to
stand upon. Their tracks afterwards enabled us to infer some
of their adventures. Apparently, after taking a good look
round and nibbling a bit here and there, becoming frequently
bogged in the process, they agreed that the valley was in
tolerable, and set off to return. They kept along the river
bank on the snow, picking their way not unskilfully, and
making fair progress, till they were brought up sharply by
lack of foresight. They were on an ice promontory, which
fell precipitously to the river on one hand, a depth of
twenty feet, and was cut off on the other side by impas
sable bog. A snow-bridge at the point of the promontory
spanned a side stream that entered there. They considered
this bridge maturely, advancing to it, putting forth a tenta
tive hoof, retreating, advancing again, and so on, till the
whole firm area was trodden down with their footprints.

Glacier Front in Ekman Bay

chap, xiii WA T E R FA L L C AMP 185
Ultimately, they gave up the adventure, and returned melan
choly toward camp. At some other time they set forth
straight up the hill, and were led by the harder ground into
a stream-bed and up a gully, which they climbed to a con
siderable height. During these peregrinations, the hobbles
were cut away by sharp rocks, for it is a peculiarity of such
loose bogs that flat stones tend to stand upright out of
them, like knife blades, so that a rope dragged about
becomes easily cut. It happened that the only spare drag-
ropes we had for them were their reins, which thus became
lost. Our fruitless search for them revealed the story of the
ponies' wanderings, and showed how energetically they
must have moved about, for their tracks were everywhere.
When the storm was at its worst, they came back to camp
and took shelter close up against the tents, to our no small
discomfort, for they pressed their heels or their noses
against our dozing heads, and kept stumbling over the tent-
ropes. Now there is nothing more disagreeable to a man
in a tent than to have some one kick a tent-rope ; it jars
the whole place, giving a peculiar sense of insecurity, and
the process, if repeated, is as unpleasant as the accidental
tapping on a man's tall hat of the points of -the opened
parasol of a lady sitting beside him. Spits's nose was con
tinually searching in my neighbourhood for biscuits, and
no persuasion would induce her to transfer her attentions
elsewhere. Notwithstanding all discomforts, it had been our inten
tion to stay another day at this camp, and climb some
neighbouring peak. There seemed little chance now of
carrying out the plan. The outlook from the tent door
was horrible. The foreground was a mere mass of sludge,
so soft that the foot went ankle-deep into it the first step.
It was all trodden about and puddled up into a filthy
tangle, in which sledges, boots, tins, ropes, and all else were

186 SPITSBERGEN chap, xm
mashed together. Everything one touched was cased in
mud. Mud covered our clothes, oozed over on to the tent
floor, and gradually encroached everywhere, so that we
became indescribably filthy. There was no opportunity to
wash, for there was only liquid mud to wash in. Beyond
a brief radius all was milk-white fog, through which the
wind seemed to blow and the rain to fall without moving
it. The fulmar petrel procession continued as before, and
ghostly birds kept emerging and vanishing on their end
less eastward way. Two brent geese were standing on
the snow close by the tent, surrounded by their young
ones. How the rain did pour down ! There was not
much encouragement to keep abroad. But the ponies
needed consolation in the form of such small ration of
oats as remained, eked out with a few biscuits. The brutes
were dreadfully hungry, and snatched at the poor fragments
with eagerness. They rubbed their heads against us, and
seemed to beg to be taken away. At last, though the fog
did not lift, the rain almost ceased. There was no more
talk of peak-climbing ; the word was, " All hands to the
packing." Down came the tents, their canvas stiff and
heavy with wet. They were rolled up anyhow, and layers
of mud of necessity rolled in with them. It was a filthy
business. Hands, and ultimately faces too, almost disap
peared behind a brown mask. The extremity of our
discomfort induced a strange indifference, wherein the dis
comfort itself almost disappeared. " There is," said Gregory,
"a portage in Canada, called the Speak-no-bad-language
Portage ; I wonder whether it deserves the name better
than this valley."
By slow degrees the sledges were loaded, laced, and
roped with the foul apparatus, and the preliminary work
was clone. If the bogs were bad on the way up, what
would now be their condition ? This was the thought of

chap, xm WATERFALL CAMP 187
each, but we cared little, for nothing could be worse than
existing circumstances. Forward movement would be a
relief, into whatever troubles it might lead. The ponies
were unusually willing and co-operative from the start. I
went off ahead to prove the ground, and Bergen followed,
treading piously in my footsteps, and hardly ever hanging
back. We took a new route, keeping down close by the
river-side, where there were great snow beds and banks.
Earlier in the season an arch of ice entirely covered the
stream and extended a hundred yards or so on either side.
The arch had broken in, and its abutments had in conse
quence crevassed longitudinally, as well as transversely at
the entrance of the still over-arched side-streams. The
transverse crevasses had to be crossed. They were not
wide, but they were broader than a pony's stride, and their
edges were rotten. The beasts, therefore, had to jump. As
Garwood said, it was the Spitsbergen Grand National.
Bergen's behaviour at the first jump was amusing. Observe
that we never beat the ponies, we had nothing to beat them
with, for the whip was voted a nuisance, and after being
tied on to the sledge for a few marches was ignominiously
left behind. The beasts lived with us, marched with us, and
were like members of the party. They almost shared our
tents, and they looked to us for their little luxuries of
biscuits and sugar. Thus they had become as tame as
dogs, and responded to vocal encouragement with remark
able confidence. I was on the far side of the crevasse,
where I trod a firm landing-place. Bergen was on the
other brink. There were bogs and starvation behind, hunger
in the midst, and a chance of oats ahead. He deliberated,
pawed a little on the snowy edge, and then jumped. The
result was a triumphant success. Where Bergen went,
Spits would follow. We found, too late, that their names
ought to have been transposed. Other crevasses succeeded

188 SPITSBERGEN chap, xm
and were similarly passed ; we thus turned nearly half
the bog-slopes and some of the worst places. It was
rather exciting, and we warmed to the work, but the out
look always remained the same, and rain kept falling at
intervals. It is remarkable how, when a man is at work in the
open air, nature brings his mental condition into harmony
with his surroundings. Whilst waiting somewhere for the
caravan I had time to look about. Undoubtedly there
was an element of grandeur in the scene. The fog
dignified everything it did not hide. It magnified the ice-
walls by the river into mighty cliffs, and broadened the
snow-flats on either side into a weird wilderness, ending
in large slopes of featureless bog, grandly curving and
fading away into vagueness and final invisibility. By the
water's edge the broken ice took strange forms, jutting up
or overhanging after the manner of seracs.
When the snow ended there was no alternative but to
traverse the bogs again. We followed our old tracks to
the edge of the moraines and over them, with slight devia
tions where improvements were obvious. This moraine-
traverse with sledges was really the most difficult piece of
work we had in Spitsbergen. The place is not easy to
describe. Let the reader acquainted with glaciers imagine
a steep-sided main valley with a glacier snout entering it
at right angles down a steep side valley. This glacier
formerly blocked the main valley to a height of some four
hundred feet. In retreating to its present dimensions it
left behind its moraine-laden snout, through the midst of
which the main valley's river has cut a gorge, still leaving
piled up on either side the old moraine mounds with ice
under them. We had to force a way over these moraines,
which are perhaps best described as ice-hills, covered with
deep mantles of mud and stones, and plastered on the

chap, xm WATERFALL CAMP 189
steep hill-sides to a height of from four to five hundred
feet above the main stream, whose immediate banks are
walls of the old ice. The moraine covering was all wet
and loose ; sometimes there would be a slowly flowing
mud mass many feet thick to be crossed, sometimes loosely
crested ridges of stony stuff, all alike trending downwards,
and so across the direction of our way.
The route actually followed cannot be described. It was
up and down, to right and to left, over one obstacle and
round another, but always forward, winning progress yard
by yard. Sometimes the sledges had to be lifted by our
united efforts, sometimes dropped over crumbling edges,
sometimes convoyed down streams, sometimes hauled through
pools. Rarely a small bed of snow or ice could be followed,
and gave welcome relief. Half-way over, we were forced
down to the river bank, where an ice-bed presented an
irresistible attraction. It was of beautifully clear blue ice,
frozen out of flood water and snow, in a small terrace-
formation not unlike a miniature reproduction of the
destroyed New Zealand terraces. Along this we gaily went,
only to find farther progress impossible and return com
pulsory. The river must be crossed. There was no other
way. Searching out a place where the ice-bank was low,
and the torrent broad and of stony bed, in we plunged.
The sledges floated at first, then got water-logged and rolled
over. One entangled itself with a big boulder, and involved
Gregory in a more thorough ducking than the rest. The
far bank was steep and of loose rocks on ice. It took the
ponies all they knew to climb on to it and haul up the loads.
The remainder of the traverse was relatively easy, and who
shall describe the joy with which we emerged on a mere
stony river fan, and beheld beyond it the pile of goods which
marked the site of Delusion Camp ? The actual breadth of
the moraine wilderness was about a mile. I did not observe

J90 SPITSBERGEN chap, xm
how long it took to cross, but all agreed in estimating the
time at about forty years, more or less.
I now relieved Garwood of the reins he had patiently
and skilfully handled for so many days. My plane-table
could be packed on the sledge. There was no surveying
required. So Garwood and Gregory went ahead, when the
loads had been rearranged, each armed with a geological
hammer and marking their way with broken stones. I had
a very soft billet, and won the credit of self-denial at the
cheapest possible rate, for it was soon apparent that Bergen
knew the way as well as I did, and could give me points in
the matter of selecting the route in detail, so as to avoid
banging the sledge against big rocks. Moreover, he was in
a hurry to get down, and presently, to my astonishment,
broke into a pathetic little trot over a flat place, as who
should say, " Let us hurry up to quit this miserable place."
Thus we made famous progress and left the fog behind,
whilst the clouds soon lifted, and only remained on the crest
of the hills at their normal roof-level of about 1500 feet. On
we plodded through a known region. The valley had seemed
a picture of desolation on our upward way ; now it appeared
fertile, kindly, and almost serene. The Sassendal was in
sight, or rather the hills along its north bank, and with every
hour the distance separating us from it visibly diminished.
Yet the ponies showed no desire to halt. They kept pegging
away like my old Balti coolies down the Baltoro Glacier,
or Gregory's Zanzibaris when they had set foot on the
Uganda road. Fatigue was simply not an element in the
situation. All forgot to be tired.
Only when we emerged on the gentle slopes of the
Sassendal did the question of camping arise. There were
two conditions to be satisfied — a dry spot for the tents, and
good grazing for the beasts. Bergen took the problem in
hand and headed for a likely place, but neither he nor we

chap, xm WATERFALL CAMP 191
were satisfied ; other sites were in turn rejected, and the
advance continued till we came to the valley that splits the
Milne-Edwards bluff in two. We were on the point of
halting. " Why not cross the river while we are wet ? "
was Garwood's wise question. So we limbered up again,
plunged down the old raised beach's bluff, bumped over
the stone-fan and .through the rivers, and so reached the
raised beach beyond. It was dry and flat, the conditions
were satisfied, and Bergen agreed. The ponies were turned
loose, camp (164 feet) was pitched, and supper followed.
" Tired ? " we asked one another. " Of course not ; we are
ready to make Bucking-horse Camp to-day if you like."
But it was a curious thing, that though every one retired to
his sleeping-bag with an elaborate apparatus of note-books
and writing materials, not a note was written at that time.
Slumber came unsought, and by general consent it was suc
ceeded (July 19) by a Europe morning. I don't know
whether some African germ revived in Gregory ; however it
came about, he was a little unwell, and thought he would
try one of the admirable Pioneer Pills, which are the
last kindness I confer on my best friends. " How are
you this morning ? " I asked him next day. " Oh, all
right! those are famous pills of yours." "Did you take
them ? " " No ! I didn't exactly take them, but I looked
at them the last moment. It was enough. They are most
rare pills."
We quitted Milne-Edwards Camp at the apparently reason
able hour of 10.40 a.m. (July 19). As a matter of fact this
was very late, and marked the final loss of a whole twenty-
four hours' day, for we had been gradually starting later and
later, first about noon, then in the afternoon, then towards
midnight, then early the following morning, and now we
had come round to a normal hour. I encouraged this pro
cess because it saved provisions, involving only twenty

192 SPITSBERGEN chap, xm
breakfasts and twenty suppers in twenty-one days. Perhaps
we overdid economy in provisions. We rationed ourselves
on the most scientific principles, and the food we took
abolished hunger at periodic intervals, but we began to
doubt whether it was so sustaining as a generous diet of
ordinary meats and other less scientifically combined pre
parations. At all events, for some not precisely discoverable
cause, we were suffering from a peculiar slackness, and
fatigue came quickly upon us. It may have been the fault
of the weather, or the damp, or the climate, or the lack of
sun. The air of Spitsbergen is not stimulating. It resembles
that of a moist English spring, when the ground is clammy
beneath a dripping sky.
So we lay late in bed, listening to the call of a purple
sandpiper, or writing rhymes, and all the while it was really
a vague reluctance to put on our wet stockings that was the
most potent factor in postponing our start. Why one should
have such an objection to wet stockings was a problem I
could not solve. Ten minutes after the day's march began
the driest hose must be as wet as the wettest, for stream-
wading was a continual necessity. The fact however remains,
and is here veraciously recorded. The day's march was a
dull enough affair and long. The old tracks were practically
retrodden, the ponies being left to their own devices much
of the way and giving no trouble. Spits plodded steadily.
Bergen's method was to make periodic halts and then trot
on and catch up with his companion — the quaintest little trot
imaginable. It was wonderful how the rivers had gone down in our
absence. Acres of channels were dry and the deep places
were grown shallow, — a blissful change. Nevertheless there
was water enough to pass, and the loads got so thoroughly
wetted that, as Garwood said, the only dry thing left in his
bundle was his Norwegian grammar. There were some

chap, xm WATERFALL CAMP

r93

bogs, of course, and equally of course Spits got fast in one,
but this no longer disturbed either her equanimity or ours.
As soon as she found herself well fixed she began com
placently grazing on whatever green tufts were within reach.
It was the finest feeding day the ponies had had ; young
grass was sprouting everywhere in delightful profusion, and
at one spot was a crop almost long enough to be made into
hay. In fact, it may be put on record here that about this
date the valleys of central Spitsbergen become travellable,
and that exploration into the interior cannot be carried out
with much advantage at an earlier date. We reckoned that,
assuming we had landed at Advent Bay about this time, and
possessed of our present experience, we could have reached
the Sassendal in three days and Agardh Bay in three more,
provided, of course, that there was no surveying, geologising,
or collecting to be done, and that the only problem was to
cover ground.
On a direct line between the foot of Peak Milne-Edwards,
which M. Rabot climbed in 1892, and Sassen Bay, where he
landed, we picked up a peculiar piece of wood, very neatly
turned, and shaped for some exact purpose we could not
define. It was probably dropped by the Frenchmen. We
carried it off as a trophy to be sent back to them. Shortly
afterwards we saw a reindeer with a big pair of antlers, a
great creature, double the size of the ordinary run of his
fellows, and almost white in colour. With him was a dark-
skinned buck of smaller dimensions. They were wary
enough, and made off uphill before we came anywhere
near them. These were the sole incidents of this most
monotonous march, which was not enlivened by any dis
covery or novelty of view or effect. The cloud roof
hung low upon the hills, and distances were blotted out.
At Bucking - horse Camp we picked up the things that
had been left there, and crossing the shrunken river below

194 SPITSBERGEN chap, xm
the dwindled waterfall, mounted to the knoll of Waterfall
Camp, and set up our tents near, the pile of fossils and empty
tins which marked their former position. The march had
only lasted five hours, and was not more than ten miles in
length, yet we were all dog-tired, so that indeed I fell asleep
while supper was in preparation, and waked to find my com
panions not much more alert.

THE SASSENDAL AND SASSEN BAY FROM STICKY KEEP.

CHAPTER XIV
WATERFALL CAMP TO ICE FJORD
IT was pleasant to awake amidst familiar surroundings
(July 20), and find ourselves at a kind of home ; pleasant
too to be greeted by promising weather, with occasional
sunshine and breaking clouds. The blue days of Waterfall
Camp were come again to greet our return ; indeed this was
the brightest blue day of them all. With the advancing hours,
tones became ever more lovely, more transparent and rich,
more indescribably ethereal, so that, where deepest shadows
lay, the substance behind them seemed most insubstantial.
A quiet morning's work in camp resulted in the patching of
the sledges, and the division and packing of all the baggage
and geological specimens here hoarded during our eastward
rush. Gregory was carpenter ; his friends would have
laughed to see him perspiring in the sunshine, with coat off,
sleeves rolled up, and a tropical pith helmet on his head.
How so unusual an object found its way to this spot I cannot
say ; it now appeared for the first time and suddenly, yet a
pith helmet is not a thing a man can carry around concealed
in his watch pocket. I asked for no explanation, preferring
a world wherein mysteries survive to all possible worlds where
everything is accounted for.
At two in the afternoon Gregory and I went off with
two heavily-laden sledges for Sassen Bay, leaving Garwood
behind to await Williamson's return with the ponies, which
he was to convoy back to Advent Bay by Brent Pass.
There was plenty of work for Garwood to do meanwhile,

196 SPITSBERGEN chap, xiv
for important photographs were lacking, and a geologist
apparently always can find sections to measure up, and
other like occupations. As usual I went ahead alone, this
time as far as Trevor-Battye's cache, having the wide valley,
the sunshine, and the exhilarating wind all to myself. Of
course I met a reindeer, a buck about three years old with
horns in velvet. We advanced to inspect one another, and
I sat down to give him an opportunity. He came up,
grunting exactly like a pig, and seemed to prefer grazing
close by me to wandering on, though whenever I moved he
skipped awkwardly away. His nostrils moved up and down
with great rapidity as he grazed.
At Delta River there was water to cross and a high
raised beach to ascend, but all the rivers in this part had
by now shrunk to moderate dimensions, and long boots
kept the water out. This river emerges from the hills
through a fine little gorge similar to that of its neighbour,
the Esker. Its waters seemed to disappear entirely into bog
on the plain, and only so to filter into the Sassen stream.
This bog was rippled over with brilliant green waves of
moss, with multifold convex fronts ; between them were
shining pools of water, gay in the sunshine, a beautiful
decoration. Henceforward Temple Mountain was ever before me,
increasingly fine in the waxing afternoon, as the sun crept
round it and peeped into its ravines, cutting out in bright
lights and shadows its buttressed front, which sometimes
resembles a columnar fagade, sometimes a row of apsed
chapels between the flying buttresses of a great Gothic
nave. It is impossible to exaggerate or, for me, to define
the quality of the beauty of the blue shadows that glorified
the mountain this day. Deep, soft, transparent, ethereal,
and yet, as it were, forming part of the mountain, manifest
ing the massive and monumental character of its structure,

¦ ^-#-;-~- ¦¦ -¦.-.•

¦

yfc»L.

GIPS BAY AND TEMPLE MOUNTAIN FROM SASSEN BAY.

chap, xiv ICE FJORD 197
but at the same time making it appear light and delicate,
a faery thing. Every step opened the eastward continua
tion of this mass of rock, where other cathedral-like pro
montories, with wide flat glaciers between, all tributaries of
Post Glacier, carry on the architectural suggestion, resembling
a group of splendid public buildings beside streets paved
with whitest marble in the midst of a city of giants. Re
garded as mountains they may in fact be small, but their
regularity brings them into comparison with the works of
man, and renders them strangely impressive.
Rubber boots are intolerable to walk in for long. I
took mine off and stood barefoot. The ground was of
springy bog, wet or dry, a delight and a surprise to tread
on. I found walking thus a most agreeable experience.
Incipient fatigue swiftly disappeared. I cared no longer
whether I sank into bog or not. It was a new delight to
feel the play of all the muscles of the foot, and how it
spread abroad like a hand and responded to every inequality.
There was no need to tug it from the clasp of bog or mud ;
it came out easily, and the softness under foot was no longer
a nuisance, but a pleasure. The cold ground and cool air
felt fresh and kindly. I had found a delightful new sensa
tion. Three or four miles were thus covered before stony
places returned and boots had to be resumed. I have seen
men in the East, who habitually walk barefoot, go most
gingerly over stony patches. Henceforward this will cause
me no surprise.
Beyond the last river was yet another raised beach, from
the point of which Sassen Bay was visible close at hand.
The ponies were cast loose to graze. It seemed that the
march was done in shorter time than was expected. Gregory
told me we must either camp at Starvation Bluff or Windy
Point — a sorry-sounding alternative ! Starvation Bluff is the
natural landing-place for Sassen Bay ; it is a low raised point

198 SPITSBERGEN chap, xiv
close to a pool of clear water by the cricket-field — the piece
of flat dry bog where, I am told, the passengers of a tourist
steamer once played a match. Nature has provided a table
for the scorer, in the form of a weathered rock on a neat
pedestal that stands out of the grass. We used to talk of
the place by the name Starvation Bluff, because it was there
Gregory and Pedersen spent hungry hours awaiting Trevor-
Battye, what time the bay was blocked with ice. Afterwards
Trevor-Battye landed here and left tents and supplies for
use on our return. We found them near the water's edge,
but no boat to enable us to reach Post Glacier, as we intended,
or to communicate with Advent Bay.
There was now little ice about ; only a few white and
blue masses, large and small, fallen from Post Glacier, and
either floating in the bay or stranded by its shores, objects
most beautiful in themselves, and a charming addition to
the glories of the landscape. The sky was clear, save for
a few cirrus wisps ; the sun shone brightly over the bay.
A chilling wind blew, but I escaped it by jumping down
the little limestone cliff forming the face of the bluff, where
a tiny cave about four feet high was all ready for me, filled
with sunshine, and no breath stirring. The rippling waters
plashed and broke in wavelets a yard away, strewing a line
of fresh, sweet-smelling seaweed along the shore. It was
good to be down by the sea again, the sea that unites all
the countries of the world, and brings mankind together.
No human creature was in sight, but a few pieces of shaped
driftwood abolished the sense of utter isolation. We were
back by an element on which men live out their lives ; we
had left behind the region where life is only temporarily
supportable. These sentences of course contradict other
opinions expressed above. Such changes of feeling in
varying circumstances form part of the charm of travel, and
much of its profit. They open the mind to new sympathies

chap, xiv ICE FJORD 199
and force it to adopt varying points of view. Now it seemed
good to behold the flocks of eiders swimming on the waters,
and the petrels flying swiftly just above the surface. The
guillemots were like old friends found again, and we even
forgave a glaucous gull, feeding close inshore amongst a
long line of kittiwakes, for the inland misdeeds of his fellows.
Sassen Bay, beheld from this point, is not only worth
seeing, but worth coming so far to see. Here the Temple
and its companions are at their grandest, with the blue
fjord or the white glaciers at their base. Hence, too, one
beholds all the wonder of Post Glacier, with its splendid
shining width, its incredible levelness, its noble backward
sweep, and its finely-curving tributaries, smooth and wide
like itself. It ends in the bay in a wall of ice, a wall white
and blue, splintering into a broken edge. "Oh to be on
it ! " was an immediate impulse, as usual needing the cor
rection, which I suppose life is not long enough to make
habitual, " Dort wo Du nicht bist dort ist das Gliick." West
ward was the long reach of Ice Fjord, closed by the pointed
and contrasting row of peaks bounding the great glaciers of
Cape Boheman, behind which stood up a tall and remoter
pyramidal white mountain, a little Weisshorn, which was
playing the pretty game of being in shadow when its neigh
bours were bright, and then shining forth brilliantly when a
cloud came between them and the sun.
Altogether, Starvation Bluff seemed a charming spot for
a camp, but a plum-pudding determined us to go on to
Windy Point, a few miles farther along the coast in the
direction of Advent Bay. When Gregory came back after
his long walk round to our base, he was obliged by the
gale to land at Windy Point, and there accordingly he left
the stores intended for use on our return. Thus we had
this day to pick up Battye's cache near Delta River, the tents
and things left by him at Starvation Point, and finally,

2oo SPITSBERGEN chap, xiv
if we wished to make a complete collection, Gregory's
deposit at Windy Point. In the last was the plum-pudding,
which decided the issue.
The sledges were thus indeed heavily burdened, and to
make matters worse they had to be dragged over slopes
furrowed with innumerable gullies. I only beheld their
troubles from afar, for work kept me close to the beach.
Gregory toiled exceedingly to help his beast, constantly
having to lift the sledge-end on to banks, whilst the ponies
became tired, and unwilling. When, at the last, a ridge
had to be mounted to a height of perhaps 300 feet, the
labour for every one was almost too much. My walk along
the beach would have been delightful but for the cutting
wind. There was always the beauty of the fjord, to which
the charm and interest of the coast were added. A long
overhanging snow-front still remained in many places,
undermined by the tide, and breaking away in great lumps,
soon to disappear. The beach was covered with traces of
man, an old milk-tin ("made in Germany"), a quantity of
tent-pegs white with age, driftwood of shaped fragments,
besides large sawn pieces of timber never intended to find
their way to these shores. Windy Point is the jutting raised
delta of a glacier stream that comes from Flower Valley.
We followed along it to close under the hills, where was a
wooden signal, set up recently for survey purposes by Baron
de Geer ; near by were the traces of his camp. Here
accordingly we halted and set up a noble camp of three
tents, our two large ones from Advent Bay and the little
up-country tent for Williamson. The work of tent-pitching
went much against the grain, but was ultimately accom
plished about half-an-hour after midnight. We were too
weary to be able to take much profit from the wealth of
supplies, but went soon to sleep, promising ourselves a
copious reward next day.

chap, xiv ICE FJORD 201
At eight o'clock (July 21) Gregory roused me, and we
wondered at the long sleep of about eighteen hours we had
enjoyed without a moment's interruption. Just then the
sun broke through clouds in the south-east, and we dis
covered it was eight in the morning ! Our sleep had been
for six hours only. In due season Williamson went off
with the beasts and empty sledges to pick up Garwood's
camp and fossils at Waterfall Camp, and follow him to
Brent Pass, where they were to meet.
Garwood spent the 20th collecting fossil reptiles from the
Triassic rocks on the Trident. He returned to Waterfall
Camp at one a.m. on the 21st. His journal describes him
as lonely, tired, and seedy, with damp in his inside. After
a sleep he packed up his tent, left it for Carl to bring on,
and walked over Brent Pass to the head of Advent Vale.
"I was accompanied," he writes, "by a snow bunting,
who hopped beside me for half a mile, without the slightest
trace of fear, singing his sweet little song while I whistled
an obligato. As I waded the countless channels, which
rippled over the moraine-strewn flat at the foot of Booming
Glacier, I realised that in order to penetrate as far as possible
to the south, it would be better not to ascend the Baldhead,
but to follow a higher ridge, conducting farther east into
the heart of the glacier system, whence Booming Glacier
takes its rise. Stumbling over the loose moraine and wading
ankle-deep in liquid clay, I reached the foot of a smaller
glacier coming down from the south-west to which we gave
the name Baldhead Glacier. This was once tributary to
the larger glacier ; it formed the old lateral moraine by
which I had approached. Baldhead Glacier had now shrunk
back into its own valley, leaving a narrow passage between
its own retreating snout and the overhanging side of its
advancing neighbour. A glance at the piles of ice recently
fallen across this passage, decided me to keep up the lateral

202 SPITSBERGEN chap, xiv
moraine, and cross the smaller glacier some distance above
its snout. The moraine was of the loosest and most villainous
composition, being, in fact, nothing more nor less than
boulder-clay in process of formation. Reaching the left
side of the glacier, I had some difficulty in finding a place
where I could safely cross it, as the surface drainage, which
flowed to this side, had excavated a channel for itself along
the side of the ice. The channel where it was open was
too wide to be jumped, and there was nothing to land on,
on the other side, but a steep ice-wall ; where the channel
was roofed in, the snow was too treacherous to be trusted.
By following it up some distance, however, I was enabled
to cross. A similar difficulty had to be overcome in de
scending the glacier on the other side.
" On starting up the ridge I discovered that I had by
no means exhausted the dilapidated peaks on the island.
The arete was simply a pile of debris, but the size of the
fragments was astonishing. I could scarcely lift most of
them. They consisted of large slabs of yellow sandstone,
many two or three feet square and over an inch thick, piled in
a loose heap as though just tipped out of a cart. During the
whole ascent I never found any solid rock. If I endeavoured
to trace a fossiliferous fragment to its parent rock, by remov
ing the loose slabs, I had eventually to give up the quest
in despair, fearing lest, if I continued to remove everything
that was loose, I should have no mountain left whereof to
chronicle the ascent. Indeed, the answer of the Irishman,
in reply to a tourist who had asked the height of a hill, that
it was 3000 feet to go up, and 1000 feet to come down, would
have applied well to Booming Peak.
" Portions of the arete were covered with snow, and
afforded a welcome relief, though in places they were so
steep and hard as to require step-cutting. The ridge was
dull and tedious to climb, but afforded me the view I sought.

chap, xiv ICE FJORD 203
It commanded the whole of the basin and feeders of Boom
ing and Baldhead Glaciers. At my feet stretched the curious
and interesting surface of the main ice-stream, with its
swollen and serrated margin rising high above the centre,
and resembling nothing so much as the row of finger biscuits
surrounding a bowl of trifle. It was most interesting to
observe how the glacier was advancing and forcing its way
up over its old lateral moraine. The more rapid motion of
the upper layers of ice caused the sides of the glacier to
overhang in perpendicular cliffs, from the top of which ice-
avalanches were perpetually crashing on to the floor of the
valley below. This raised and broken edge could be traced
for some distance up both sides of the glacier, presenting
a marked contrast to the sloping, convex snout of the re
treating Baldhead tributary. This is not the place to discuss
the present climatic changes of Spitsbergen, but it may be
noted that from this glacier we have evidence that the
general advance shown by so many of the Spitsbergen ice-
streams does not necessarily prove an intensification of
glacial conditions in these latitudes.
"After descending to the foot of the ridge, I debated
whether to recross the Baldhead Glacier or risk the short
and easier passage between the two glaciers. Tired and
hungry, I decided in favour of the quicker route, and, skirt
ing close round at the foot of the smaller snout, scrambled
over the fallen blocks of ice until I was forced to climb on
to the old lateral moraine to avoid walking under overhang
ing seracs, threatening to fall at any minute. On the moraine
I found a deserted eider's nest. The brood being hatched,
I pocketed the down, thinking it might protect some of my
bones when the inevitable fall came, without which I had
little hope of clearing that execrable moraine. However,
after wading the interminable channels on the flat below, I
reached Carl and the ponies at three a.m. without mishap.

204 SPITSBERGEN chap, xiv
" Carl was asleep, and the ponies had strayed out of sight,
being as usual, when left with that master mind, insecurely
tethered. Indeed, having long since used up both pairs of
reins and. all our light Alpine rope for this purpose, he
had probably nothing left with which to fasten them up."
Next afternoon they set forth down Advent Vale, going
together as far as Ooze Camp, where Garwood bore to the
left round the mounded hill so prominently seen from Cairn
Camp. He passed over a low col, and went down an easy
open valley on the other side to the site of Cairn Camp.
He waited an hour for Carl, but saw no sign of him, so, to
quote from his journal : —
" I started up the valley to meet him, and found him in
difficulties with Bergen, who was tired, and had rubbed his
shoulder. We struggled along to a dry patch below Cairn
Camp and pitched the tent. I then discovered that my ice-
axe and hammer had been dropped off one sledge, so we
had to pitch the tent with my camera legs ; also I had
dropped my knife by the way whilst digging up plants, so
it was indeed a day of misfortunes. Turned in about four
A.M. (23rd) — raining.
"Started at two p.m. The travelling was bad from the
start. We both fell into a hole in crossing Fox Valley River
and were soused. There were alternately areas of large
stones and swamps. Only on the terraces after passing
Bolter Valley could we get firm ground for more than a
few yards. In fact, in some respects, things were in a
worse condition than when we came up, especially for the
sledges, which were bumped to pieces over the boulder-
strewn patches. Our worst difficulty, however, was the
second gully, which, instead of being choked with snow,
was now a deep trench with almost perpendicular walls,
difficult for a man, but impossible for ponies. We had,
therefore, to keep up the gully over fiendish piles of rock-

chap, xiv ICE FJORD 205
debris, and eventually, in order to cross, up an icy slope
of about 40°. Harnessing both ponies to one sledge at a
time, and ourselves hauling with all our might, we managed
to get both sledges up, but they were a wreck of their
former selves. We had to keep high up to cross the next
gully, and then down the steep upper slopes, where the
native sledge utterly collapsed. First one runner gave way,
then the other. The sledge was running on its bottom.
Then that gave way. So I abandoned it to its fate, and
harnessed both ponies to the remaining sledge, which was
in the dickiest condition. We eventually struggled into
camp at midnight, wet, tired, and miserable. It had rained
and sleeted nearly all day, and I was several times in
despair of getting either sledge through. Carl fetched in
the broken sledge next day."

CHAPTER XV
MOUNT LUSITANIA
JULY 21 was a raw and mainly sunless day at Windy
Point, but it was not unpleasant, for rain held off and
clouds kept above the hills, so that the forms of the land
scape were visible, though the previous day's wondrous
charm of colour was lacking. Gregory did some fossil-
gathering on the slopes behind, whilst I cooked ; other
wise neither of us left the sacred precincts of the camp.
Our only visitors were birds. Most welcome were the kitti-
wakes, who fed in a row at high tide a few yards from the
shore, one and another now and again rising on easy wing
and hovering over the water before lightly settling back
upon its surface. A skua or two came to see that we were
all right, and there were eiders and glaucous gulls and
guillemots. Clouds grew lower and denser with the passing
hours, and all the glory of the view was taken away. The
Temple looked like a mere hump of rock, the glaciers like
so much ordinary ice, and the bay like a sheet of water.
Fancy sleeps in chilly seasons, and needs the sun to
awaken her.
This time it was not the sun which came as awakener,
but the spirit-lamp. It took some wild freak into its in
terior and suddenly erupted, pouring forth a volume of
flame, and ejecting a quantity of lighted spirit on to my
right hand and in the immediate neighbourhood of two
pounds of blasting-powder. I plunged the burning member
into a sleeping-bag, whilst Gregory extinguished the volcano.
206

LOOKING SOUTH-WEST FROM MOUNT LUSITANIA.

chap, xv MOUNT LUSITANIA 207
Butter and an old duster were the only medicaments and
bandage available, but they sufficed. It was a sorry out
look and a painful experience, but things turned out all
right. I was not crippled nor prevented from holding pen
and pencil for a day, thanks to the horny hide produced
by a month's camp life. Spirit could burn on it as on the
outside of a boot. It raised indeed a score of blisters, but
they were judiciously scattered.
With early morning (July 22) the sun returned, and the
wind dropped ; hills were again clear, and waters smooth. As
we sat over breakfast at the tent door a flock of little auks
came to amuse us. They appeared to be young birds at school.
There must have been a couple of score of them swimming
about in a tightly-packed group, and turning hither and thither
in unanimous evolutions. At some note of command given,
down they all simultaneously dived, remaining under for about
half a minute, and returning to the surface widely scattered,
but swiftly concentrating again. Gregory had darning to do.
I watched him. He was my superior in this matter also,
for as a child he had been taught the art, much to his then
disgust. In reply to his protests his mother gave him a
book of Moffat's to read, in which that African traveller
relates the trouble he was in, when thrown on his own
resources, through not having learnt to sew. It was a
curious coincidence that sent Gregory also to Africa to
apply his youthfully acquired skill. This day he would
have none of my exceptional apparatus, and sneered at my
six-inch needles and ice-axe thimble, selecting only from
my store a quite ordinary darning-needle and commonplace
thimble — such is the narrowing effect of prejudice early
acquired !
At eleven A.M. we set forth for a day's exploring inland,
congratulating ourselves on the kindly weather. Our way was
up the valley behind — the Flower Valley we named it, after the

208 SPITSBERGEN chap, xv
Director of the British Museum (Natural History), and be
cause of its relative botanical wealth. A naval officer once
told me a story of his first Arctic experience. He was sent
from his ship with a few men to land at some spot on the
neighbouring coast and find a cairn built there by a previous
expedition. One of the seamen with him was an old Arctic
hand. When they had landed, the seaman said to him,
" Where's your food, sir ? " He replied, " I haven't brought
any ; we shall be back on board in three hours." " Excuse
me, sir," was the reply, "but that ain't Arctic." "Where's
your rifle, sir ? " was the next question. " I haven't brought
one." "That ain't Arctic either, sir." They climbed the
hill and found the cairn. While it was being searched the
seaman carved the officer's name on one side of a piece of
wood, and his own initials on the other side. " What's that
you're sticking into the cairn, Jack ?" "Just a piece of wood
with your name on it, sir." " But I don't want my name
carved all over the place." " Excuse me, sir, but that's
Arctic." Returning to the shore they found the ice packing,
and were only just able by the narrowest shave to get back
to the ship before the way was blocked.
We went forth this day without either rifle or provisions,
except a few biscuits. As Gregory afterwards said, " It ain't
Arctic." We needed both — the rifle when we found reindeer
about half a mile from camp, and the provisions a few hours
later. We followed the left bank of Flower Valley by an
up-and-down way over various steep-flanked gullies. The
scenery was tame, and resembled that of some of the less
interesting valleys of Tirol. The slopes were bare, with
snow-beds lying on them, and there were large snow accumu
lations by and overhanging the river. Masses fell from these
into the stream with the boom of an avalanche, and cast
clouds of snow-dust into the air.
The sun was hot ahead, and we felt his power, and per-

chap, xv MOUNT LUSITANIA 209
spired as much going up as we were to shiver coming
down. The view over Sassen Bay developed with the
ascent, but it lacked picturesqueness, because the sun shone
straight on to the hills, so that there were no shadows to
define and diversify their forms. Even the Temple looked
flat and mean under such illumination. On the east was a
line of hills, with an uninterestingly undulating crest ; over
against them was another similar line ; the quiet valley lay
between. About four miles up was the glacier's snout (928
feet), amongst a moraine chaos. There was a peculiar object
about fifty yards below the end of the glacier. It resembled
a small volcano, about forty yards wide, with a crater in
the midst, the diameter of which was about twenty yards, and
its depth, say, twenty feet. But the thing was made of ice, for
the most part in long blue prisms, extraordinarily beautiful,
whilst the crater contained a pool of water. It was like
the place found by the Wandering Jew, where " the cracking
earth shot forth bundles of frozen spangles." The pranks
played by the ice-foot below a glacier's end in these parts
are a constant surprise to any one only acquainted with
glacier phenomena in the temperate regions of the globe.
Any pile of snow that endures over one summer turns
into ice. This mound was doubtless originally a pile of
snow, perhaps drifted up by the eddying of winds in the
moraine hollow in the midst of which it lay. The forma
tion of a pool of water in it would not be surprising, and
the pool once formed would tend to deepen and enlarge.
It would be interesting to know whether this object always
exists, or whether it is only a temporary phenomenon. As
it lies so near the frequently visited Sassen Bay, perhaps
future visitors may bring back news or, better still, photo
graphs of it in years to come.
Crossing the river by a frail ice-bridge, we mounted
the moraines and entered on the glacier. It was in no
O

210 SPITSBERGEN chap, xv
sense a peculiar glacier, but may be taken as absolutely
typical of the smaller Spitsbergen examples. From the
moment of treading on it you know that you are not in
the Alps. The surface of the ice is softer, and crunches
more easily than in Europe ; there is more water on it, and
more snow, lying about in wet beds, and now rapidly dis
appearing. This snow was in better condition than any
we had thus far met, and had evidently been frozen during
recent days. There was not much more snow high up
than low down. There was no proper neve. At the col
and right up to the tops of the peaks around, all was ice
below the thin snow-sheet. The main water-channel started
from the very col itself and flowed over the ice, even
crossing snow-filled crevasses, right down to the moraines.
These surface rivers, flowing in channels down the snow-
covering of a glacier from its uppermost region, are highly
characteristic of Arctic glaciers. We saw them even on
the largest and remotest snow-fields. They often become
bogged in snow-beds, or flow for a while below the surface,
but they emerge again and continue their irregular furrow
down to each glacier's foot. They form a climber's great
impediment, for on large glaciers they are deep and swift,
and the snow-bogs and slush-lakes they make are enormous,
and may often be impassable.
As the day advanced and the sun went round, the widening
view over the fjord grew in beauty. It strikingly resembled
many a spring-time prospect over Como or Maggiore. Hills
and water were alike drowned in a beautiful blue tint, which
masked the barrenness of the shores whereon the sun shone
warmly. No lake-view of Italy could have been more
luxuriant or more lovely than that of this desert sea-reach
in an Arctic land. But clouds were gathering over it when
we gained the col, and the moments of its visibility were
evidently to be few ; so we did not halt, but hurried

chap, xv MOUNT LUSITANIA 211
on, up the rounded ridge of gritty debris on our left to
the summit of the neighbouring Mount Lusitania, the self
same mountain that Garwood and I were making for on
July 6, when the crevasses turned us back. The first thing
I saw from the top was the place of our enforced return.
The snow in which we so deeply waded was gone from it,
and the ice-surface revealed with its multitude of schrunds. I
gazed at the place with retrospective horror. A more cre-
vassed piece of glacier I never saw ; and we had no rope.
In future I shall say of unroped glacier-walking in July, "That
ain't Arctic."
The view was important and interesting. There were two
hours' topographical work in it at the least ; but no one
could have stayed two hours to do it, for a cold and furious
wind made every moment a torture, sucking all the warmth
out of us, and swiftly taking every particle of feeling out of
the fingers, so that a little longer exposure would have resulted
in frost-bite. The time of our halt on the top was in every
respect horrible. I levelled the plane-table on the loose
flags, and then knocked it crooked when I moved, for the
flags on which we trod tilted one another, and the work was
to do again. In attempting to photograph I fogged three
plates out of eight through the clumsiness of cold fingers
and stupidity induced by the raging elements. Moreover,
there was need for haste anyhow, for clouds were rapidly
covering the hills, and one point disappeared after another.
It was infinitely annoying, for we were in the very centre
of the surveyed region, and could have corrected and added
many details. The heads of the complicated network of
valleys, whose mouths alone clouds had permitted us to see
on the way up Advent Vale, were all now revealed. We were
behind the outer ring of peaks that look down on that valley,
and the secrets of their structure were revealed. There
was the Sassendal in sight too, right up to Rabot Glacier,

212 SPITSBERGEN chap, xv
and all the maze of puzzling mountains round from it to the
Advent Vale Bluffs, with the Baldhead right in the foreground
— work in them alone for an hour, but before we had well
realised what they were, cloud covered them up. Then there
was the splendid fjord, away to Cape Boheman, with count
less hills beyond it — low ones near the coast, and isolated
big fellows behind— the Colosseum, the Capitol, and unnamed
giants far inland.
We stamped and slapped our arms about, and scrawled
crooked notes, and took hurried sights and photographs —
but it was all of little use ; one could not quietly reason
things out with frozen body and fingers recently roasted, and
now submitted to a cold-storage process. For half-an-hour
we suffered and laboured, then made a wild bolt for the
pass, and left the storm to rage amongst the senseless rocks.
Down we went by a shorter route, plunging again over
concealed crevasses, into one of which I slipped a foot. It
was fortunately small, and we were in no temper to bother
about trifles. The wind did not reach far down. On the
leveller glacier it was only a slow, cold air-current, and by the
moraines it was almost still. There at last we halted under
the lee of a big rock, ate our biscuits, and wished for some
thing more solid. Continuing the descent we found better
going on the right bank of the valley for some distance, then
crossed the river by lucky stepping-stones, and so ultimately
returned to camp with dry feet, for the first time in Spits
bergen, after a most fatiguing expedition. Never did the
shelter of tents seem more delightful, or a hot meal more
soul-satisfying. When the canvas doors were tightly closed
and the pipe of solace was lit— in which Gregory knew not
to i share — little cared I that the weather was again broken
and the future utterly obscure.
Next morning at breakfast we had a momentary vision of
release ; we thought there was a boat off Hyperite Hat,

chap, xv MOUNT LUSITANIA 213
coming with a fair breeze to carry us away. Then we thought
it looked through the glass like a steamer. But it remained
always in the same position, and proved to be one of Baron
de Geer's survey signals, raised and magnified by a tantalis
ing mirage. Fog and rain presently settled down, and the
hours had to be spent on camp work, of which there was
always plenty to be done. The length of time one has
to spend over cooking is alone a considerable factor in
servantless camp-life, and the fewer members there are in
a party, the longer is the proportion of time thus occupied,
since four are cooked for as quickly as two, or more quickly,
with more hands to do the odd jobs of fetching water, wash
ing up, finding tins and things from the stores, and so on.
The day wore slowly out. A real sail appeared in sight,
apparently coming from Klaas Billen Bay. This time we
felt sure it was Trevor-Battye, but the boat, in which were
two men, did not come in our direction, and was lost from
view somewhere in Temple Bay. They were having a brisk
sail of it, for there was a hatful of wind and white-caps all
over the fjord. Clouds hurried by, low down, and rain-
besoms swept sea and land below them. Towards evening
rain turned to snow, which even fell about the tent for an
hour, but did not lie. Through cloud-breaks we saw now
this hill, now another, powdered white from base to crest,
the Temple being selected for special adornment.
Tightly we closed the tent doors, whilst I for my part
spent the evening hours seated in a warm fur bag, and
indifferent to what went on without. The wind might howl
itself hoarse, and the rain ding and splutter on the tent,
I cared not at all, but wrote and drew with absolute indiffer
ence. Such treatment takes the heart out of any weather,
however bad. Improved conditions consequently set in, and
the following day (July 24) was bright again. Spitsbergen
weather in these summer months is very English — the same

2H SPITSBERGEN chap, xv
soft, damp air, the same fickleness and unreliability, the same
occasional perfection. In future I shall always think of
England as belonging in a climatic sense to the polar regions.
The Arctic Circle ought to be drawn through the Straits of
Dover. The contrast between London and Paris weather
is the contrast between the Arctic and temperate regions.
Our fogs and winds and changeful damps belong to the pole.
Our green lawns are but more refined Spitsbergen bogs. One
has to come to these islands of the north to understand
not merely the geological history, but the present atmos
pheric conditions of the British Isles.
Gregory and I were on the point of sallying forth to seek
fossils and adventures, when a reindeer came down from
Flower Valley, and put us in the way of a temptation to
which we promptly yielded. It was not any sporting
enthusiasm that awoke in us, but sheer greediness, the
desire for a change of diet, for fresh meat to get our teeth
into. The lot fell upon Gregory, and off he went for a stalk,
the details of which were hidden from me by a fold of ground.
It suffices to say that the beast was persuaded into the pot.
May I never have a more toilsome job than the carrying
him between us to camp, for he was a lusty buck. Whilst
Gregory skinned him and cut him up, I went for a belated
walk along the shore, keeping to the loose and deeply
furrowed hill-sides, for the tide was high, and washed the
little precipice at their foot.
It was a toilsome promenade, but not dull, for there was
always the beautiful loch on my right, with the fair hills
beyond, a harmony in silver and blue. About three miles
along, the hills ended, and De Geer Valley debouched on a
wide, far-extending delta, low and damp, with many streams
and pools. Here was another of De Geer's camps, and
several of his signals about, among them our quondam
deceiver. The valley rose by a sudden step over a wall

LOOKING UP DE GEER VALLEY.

chap, xv MOUNT LUSITANIA 215
of hyperite. On to this I mounted, and the whole trough
was open before me, long and straight, leading to a low
green pass, beyond which was the valley, which opens into
Advent Vale at the old moraines. On my left was the dull
range forming also the left side of Flower Valley. On my
right were a new set of hills. The valley was wide, fertile
(for this region), and flat. The ponies might have returned
by this route to Advent Vale, and been saved a long detour.
One cannot, however, foresee everything in an unsurveyed
country. I advanced some distance up the valley without
gaining more information.
Returning, I was attracted by a faint cloud rising over
the river, where ft flows through the hyperite. This de
manded and rewarded investigation, for it was caused by a
striking waterfall. The hyperite gorge has vertical sides,
whose effect of height is increased by the roughly columnar
structure of the rock. Half-way along the gorge the river
plunges over a wall about fifty feet high, itself transverse
to two longitudinal walls of double the height, enclosing
both the cascade and the pool into which it plunges. In
the afternoon, when I was there, the whole was wrapped in
shadow, but the gloom magnified the aspect of the scene.
One or two rock columns stood out, almost detached from
the masses on either side, great monoliths finely erect. The
gorge, bending round behind, closed in the view. Though
the fall and its surroundings are not on a large scale, the
proportions are excellent, designed on noble lines, and more
impressive in total effect than many a greater assemblage
of rocks and falling water.
The light was bad for photography, but I could not
wait the needful five hours for an improvement. My steps
turned homeward, or rather dinnerward. The tide was
out now, so the narrow beach could be followed, an agreeable
change from the everlasting up and down of gully-crossing

216 SPITSBERGEN chap, xv
on d6bris slopes. Little waves came tumbling in rapid
succession on the fallen blocks of hyperite and the fine
debris of black shales that lay between the low shale cliffs
and the water. Overhanging ice-masses still clung to these
cliffs, all undercut through their whole depth of twenty
feet or so, and merely clinging to the cliffs by sheer adhesion.
Water flowing from the gullies was discharged through ice-
tunnels that invited one to enter their dark twisting recesses.
At one place a fulmar petrel, apparently injured, flopped
along the ground at my feet so that I could touch it. It
made its way into the sea and swam leisurely, about two
or three yards from shore, and quite unconcerned at my
presence. There were lumps of clear drifted ice on the
beach. Near camp the hyperite blocks became so numerous
that it was necessary to step from one to another, and
walking grew wearisome, as it always becomes when the
eyes have to be fixed on the ground. Arrival in camp was
therefore a relief. I had only been absent five hours, but
lonely tramps always seem long. This walk, however, had
not been unprofitable, for it enabled me to fill a blank of
twelve square miles on the map. The vacant space between
Advent Vale and the sea was rapidly diminishing. One
day with a boat would cause it to disappear. Before turning
in we again scanned the horizon with a glass, but there was
no sail. "To-morrow," we said, "they will assuredly come
and fetch us."

HYPERITE WATERFALL.

CHAPTER XVI
BY SASSEN BAY
ON awaking (July 25) we looked forth. There was no boat,
but there was a fox making free with our meat at the
very door of the tent. He was a mighty cool animal, and
regarded us with contempt. Unfortunately for him his skin
was needed for the British Museum. He dragged a joint
a few yards off, and remained by it while Gregory fetched
and loaded the rifle which put a period to his existence. A
shot-gun would have been more suitable, but there was none
in camp, and the only rifle was an old Snider, that had been
banged about in African camps. The fur, of course, suffered.
Gregory skinned the beast, whilst I scanned the fjord for
a sail and smoked many pipes. Deceptive lumps of ice hove
in sight and disappeared, but never a sail did we see. The
sun moved round in the clearest sky ; a cool breeze played
about the tents. The sea was soundlessly still, only the
neighbouring burn sent a rippling voice through the bright
air. It was a day amongst a thousand, delicious to every
sense, and perfect in beauty. Some hours went uncounted
by in blissful contemplation, and I, for one, was looking
forward to a whole happy, vacuous day. It is easy enough
to promise one's self the enjoyment of leisure hours in perfect
idleness. The guests of Nature, as all men are, cannot reckon
without their host, and she abhors a vacuum, nor long permits
even a traveller to be happy unoccupied. So when the after
noon came and brought no boat, by mutual consent we quitted
camp for an upward ramble.

218 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvi
The tents were planted between the fjord and a corrie
running back into the wide hill-front, the end of the ridge
separating Flower and De Geer Valleys. It was clear from
the survey that this ridge must be wide, and should have
an undulating top, whence fine views might be obtained. Ac
cordingly we made for the corrie's mouth, and were surprised
to encounter not merely a moraine, but one still covering
accumulations of old ice. The glacier that left the ice has
long ago receded and, as we supposed, utterly vanished. We
found it again, however, as will presently appear. The crest
of the corrie, all round, as seen from below against the sky,
consisted of a small precipice of columnar hyperite, broken
by many steep gullies. We climbed a long debris slope to
one of these at the west side near the fjord end, and scrambled
up it, not without difficulty, for it was very steep, and all the
rocks were rotten, so that neither hand nor foot hold was
secure. The final step was just touch and go.
This difficulty passed, there came the great rolling upland
we had expected, almost flat over areas big enough for ten
cricket-fields. It undulated away in all directions, and easily
led us on to widening views and new prospects. Now we
looked far over the fjord and saw Post Glacier better than
ever, and, for the first time, a flat snow col at its head, beyond
which was mere sky — not a peak jutting over, nor the sign
of a snow dome. Corrie Down, as we called the place, was
dotted with a sparse vegetation of the usual kind — poppies,
dryas, and saxifrages, all past the prime of their blossom
ing ; but stony areas predominated, and, near the snow-beds,
stone-bogs rapidly drying up. Upward we wandered on,
following a little brook till we came on to the back of the broad
ridge and could see into De Geer Valley and across it to the
group of mountains between us and Advent Vale. They were
surprisingly fine, and, for me, unkindly complex, a maze of
peaks, standing up in apparent confusion one beyond another

chap, xvi BY SASSEN BAY 219
and pouring down many glaciers, the existence of which would

TEMPLE BAY FROM CORRIE DOWN.

not be suspected from the fjord. Two glaciers almost flowed
together at the mouth of a valley opening opposite us out of

220 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvi
De Geer Valley. They spread back into many bays, and were
lost in the recesses of the dark hills. Altogether, this view
was a revelation. Farther round, over the burnished water and
beneath the sun, came the ever clear hills behind Cape
Boheman, the hills that enclose the great, gently sloping glacier
that spreads back so far and forms so conspicuous an object
from Advent Point. The peaked and varied forms of these
hills are in marked contrast with that of the levelly bedded
type which predominates at the east end of Ice Fjord, whilst
their situation makes them visible from afar, and always across
a wide stretch of water. They are bathed in perpetual blue,
and we often saw them projected against a yellow sky, with
grey mottled clouds above a low horizontal line just clear of
their tops. For some reason, this year they enjoyed more
fine weather than other places not far away. When clouds
broke from about us we used often to see this range of hills
shining in clear sunlight, like islands of the blest.
Making a wide circle round the head of the corrie, we
again reached the hyperite precipice, just above camp.
Seen from above, its jutting columns and detached towers
stand out in bold denticulation, a splendid foreground to
the blue fjord below. This time the cliff was passed by an
easy gully, and the talus below descended with a facility
the exact counterpart of the labour of ascent. The trend
of slopes directed our steps to the bed of the corrie, about
half-way up it, where we encountered what is probably one
of the smallest glaciers in the world — a little white thing,
not more than a quarter of a mile long, nor over thirty yards
wide. It was much crevassed at its snout, and was making
an infantile effort to advance by throwing forward its little
seracs. In reality it was in its second childhood, for once
it was quite a fine glacier, with a neve on the downs, a
great ice-fall over the hyperite precipice, and a snout down
by the fjord, where we saw the still existing moraine. Now

ADVENT BAY HILLS SEEN FROM CORRIE DOWN.

chap, xvi BY SASSEN BAY 221
it is merely fed by avalanches from the sides of the corrie.
At one point this little glacier has to pass over a lower bed
of hyperite, some two feet thick, which protrudes from the
softer masses of the hill-side. Over this bed it goes in a
ridiculous little ice-fall, almost pathetic in its mimicry of the
grand cascades of ice that dignify its greater contemporaries.
We arrived in camp thoroughly fatigued. The fact may
as well be put on record. A four hours' walk had been
quite enough for us — indeed, more than enough. Energy
was barely left to cook dinner and crawl into sleeping-bags.
In Spitsbergen all suffered in this way, yet we were not a
weakly set. The reason was not easy to find. Sometimes
we said it was the food, but change of food made no
difference. Sometimes we thought it was mere slowness in
coming into condition, but the passing weeks and the con
tinual exercise brought no improvement. We were always
slack, intellectually as well as physically. It was a labour
to write, a labour to settle down to any work whatever.
Yet the air seemed brisk, and came either over the snows
or the sea. Purer air can scarcely be found. Though
pure, however, it was certainly relaxing, and made life
laborious. It possessed none of the stimulus of alpine
breezes. There was still no sign of any boat, and now the utmost
limit of Trevor-Battye's time was spent. Why had he not
come ? We started at every sound without, thinking we
heard footsteps on the beach, or calls from the sea — all
fictions fancy framed. During the night, indeed, visitors
came to our camp in search of meat, gulls that pulled the
reindeer joints about, and then a fox. Gregory was on the
alert, and drove the gulls away, whilst he shot the fox a
yard or two from my tent ; but I slept on through it all,
and did not even hear the report of the rifle fired so close
to my head.

222 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvi
It is hard in writing a book of travel to convey to the
reader a truthful idea of the stages of suspense, expectation,
and disgust through which one passes, without wearying him
with repetition of details. Every hour that now went by
was filled with nothing but wonder about the missing boat.
Why did it not come ? Had it gone to the bottom, or
been wrecked on the shore of the fjord ? Then there was
our faithful comrade, Garwood ; he must have reached
Advent Point full two days ago. Why had he not brought
a boat round for us ? Was it that he could not get any
of the Advent Bay boats ? Or had some misfortune over
taken him ? Had he missed Williamson and the ponies,
or had the ponies gone astray ? or had he come to grief
on a solitary climb, or fallen into a crevasse ? Such were
the questions we spent hours in debating, but never an
answer did we find, and never a sail hove in sight. The
sun went round and round in a brilliant sky, and days
possible for work were taken away one by one, whilst we
remained helpless by the now well-known shores of Sassen
Bay, skinning foxes and cooking, and watching the deserted
fjord for a sail that did not appear.
No previous day that we spent in Spitsbergen was more
glorious for cloud-effects than this. In the early morning
fine masses of cumuli marched across the southern hills,
white and tall, their bases high over the mountain crests.
In the afternoon a faint mist, delicate and grey, brooded
upon the fjord and almost obliterated the feet of the hills
to the north, but let their tops appear against the sky in
absolute distinctness. Then came low-sweeping beds of
soft white cloud, some thousand feet above sea-level, which
crawled about like huge dragons, clinging to the hill-sides.
One hung on to the Temple. Another crept out of Klaas
Billen Bay and round the nearer headland, casting a deep
shadow on the water. Meanwhile above Cape Thordsen a

chap, xvi BY SASSEN BAY 223
wondrous cloud-drama was played, and every variety of mist,
densely packed, and rounded, or finely drawn and evanes
cent, all shining in sunlight, climbed about the hills or
draped their slopes, whilst the faint grey haze lay below,
and a sky mottled with brilliant flocks of cloudlets canopied
the whole. For foreground to this lovely prospect was the
crisp water, tumbled into frequent waves by a steady breeze
which also blew in from Hyperite Hat, and finally stranded
at the very doors of our camp a splendid block of ice, melted
into spires and knobs of clearest crystal, wherein the sun
light played, and about which the waves broke in glistening
foam. It was like Galatea's chariot, but alas ! there was
no Galatea, and no mermen and maidens to grace the
laughing shore.
Out of sheer idleness I gathered a pile of driftwood
together and set it burning, freeing at all events some of
its long-imprisoned and oft-frozen particles, to fly into the
air and escape, perhaps to warmer climes, more probably
to fall on the neighbouring snow and remain in this Arctic
prison. Where, I wondered, did the various trees grow,
and who was J. N. P., whose initials were carved on a bit of
board ? Up to the sky they all went in a blue cloud,
leaving only a few ashes behind amidst the hyperite blocks
that made the hearth. Gregory had fossils to trim and
pack, so he was saved from utter boredom, and could sit
chipping away in a relatively happy state of mind ; but I
had nothing that needed to be done, and was in no inven
tive humour. I could but watch the clouds growing
heavier, and note how the sunlight became golden as the
sun went to the north, dipping visibly lower than it did a
month before, and already beginning to foretell the day of
its long setting.
Ultimately the sky was wholly overcast, and the hills
buried in cloud, which powdered them over with new

224 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvi
snow, so that when we awoke (July 27) the outlook
would indeed have been gloomy, but for the brilliant
appearance, about two miles off, by the De Geer Valley
delta, of a sloop riding at anchor, and two white tents
pitched near it on the shore. Glad men were we, and
sprightly of movement. Breakfast was cooked and eaten
at a rare pace, and off we went along the resounding
shore, caring neither for bogs above nor rocky impediments
below. The sloop seemed asleep. There was no watch on
deck. The tents were tightly closed, and a boat was drawn
up alongside. But our halloo was answered from within.
They were the tiniest and simplest tents imaginable, pathetic
ally home-made. There was just the ridged roof of thin
canvas, supported by crossed sticks at both triangular
ends, and the whole held in place without a single rope
by a row of stones piled all round its edges upon the
ground. I went down on my knees and pushed my head in at the
door. At the far end of the little tent sat a small and kindly-
faced man, crouched like an oriental, while a lad, clearly his
servant, lay across the opening. They were eating a simple
breakfast. Science was written on the worthy man's face.
You would know him anywhere for a collector of some
thing. The huge pile of botany paper close at hand showed
his particular business.
After salutations we began asking questions, to which
replies were given in very deliberate, but good English. " Is
that your sloop ? " " No ; it is a Tromso sloop, and has come
here after reindeer." " Would it take us to Advent Bay ? "
" I don't think so. The captain does not like Englishmen
with guns. There was an Englishman at Advent Bay, who
asked to be brought round here, but he would not take him
because he had a gun." " But we are not Englishmen with
guns ; we are scientific students." " Ah ! that is different •

The Colosseum Mountain from Ekman Bay

chap, xvi BY SASSEN BAY 225
perhaps he will take you, for he is not a bad man. He is
a good man. He brought me round here for nothing, and
treated me very well." "What is his name ?" "He is Cap
tain Ekrem of Tromso. If you like, I will row out with
you to him ; but it is quite possible he cannot take you, for
he has landed his men, and some have gone up that valley
to shoot reindeer, and others have gone up the Sassendal.
He is waiting here for them."
We rowed off to the sloop, and the boy climbed on board
and awoke the captain, an uncommonly comfortable-looking,
well-dressed sailor, about thirty years of age. He put on
an ostentatiously indifferent manner when he saw us. Mr.
Jorgensen acted as interpreter. " Oh yes," he said, " I could
take you to Advent Bay, but I should lose time, and you
must pay. How much would you pay?" "Well, tell us
how much you want." " I don't know ; it is for you to say
what you are willing to give." With the breeze that was
blowing, the run would have taken perhaps three hours.
There was a man and a boy on the sloop. I offered to pay
about a guinea (twenty kroner). "He says that is not enough."
"Well then, how much does he want ?" " He doesn't know.
He says in one hour on shore he can shoot a hundred kroners'
worth of reindeer, and that he will lose several hours going
with you. In fact, I believe he would not take you for less
than a hundred kroner." I made again a reflection that has
occurred to me both before and since ; the farther north
you go in Norway, the more shameless is the swindling an
Englishman has to encounter. The simple folk within the
Arctic Circle can give points to the veriest Shylock. We
bade the man go and make his hundred kroner, and left
him. He lolled below and returned to sleep, nor did he
make any attempt to land during the whole day.
We rowed back to the botanist's camp, to land him and
his boy, then rowed away in his boat, which he most kindly
P

226 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvi
placed at our disposal. It was not a light boat, and the
sculls were anything but handy. There was a good deal of
sea on for Sassen Bay, and the waves caught us on the
quarter, so that we lopped and toppled about ; but we
pulled lustily on, and reached our camp without an " easy."
Then came the tug-of-war. Our united strength did not
suffice to haul the boat up, and the tide was rising. She
had to be left bumping against the shore. Fortunately she
was strong. Striking and packing camp was a labour : such
quantities of tins full of rocks, and such a general accumula
tion, besides three tents, various heads and skins, collecting
tins full of spirit, and all the apparatus of scientific exploration
— in all, about six hundred pounds of stuff. This had to be
packed, carried down to the edge of the sea, and made
ready for lading. It was two hours' work. At intervals we
hauled the boat farther in as the tide rose. Just when the
tide began to turn I climbed into the boat and kept her
stern off the beach with a pole, whilst Gregory handed the
various things to me and I packed them till there was
barely room for the two of us to sit. We certainly could
not swing to the rowing nor reach well forward, for bundles
impeded every motion.
At last we were able to shove off. I never before appre
ciated the joy that captain and crew of a ship must feel
once the cargo is stored, the harbour quitted, and they safe
out at sea. Any tossing would have been a relief after the
loading. This, doubtless, is the secret of a sailor's love for
the sea. It is not the sea itself he likes, but the harbours
he hates, the loading and unloading, the getting in and out.
Thus one of the great puzzles of my life was solved — how
any one can be found to live on the sea !
Fortunately the wind had somewhat abated and the sea
gone down, but we had enough to do to pull our heavy
load along. Slowly the cliffs went by. Incredibly slowly

chap, xvi BY SASSEN BAY 227
our camping-place receded into the distance, but it did
recede. We hoped to round the delta of De Geer Valley
and reach the neighbourhood of Hyperite Hat, but Mr.
Jorgensen awaited us on the beach, and said there was too
much sea beyond the spit, and he was afraid for his boat.
Our tired arms blessed his fears. We pulled ashore, and
landed our camp close beside his.

CHAPTER XVII
BACK TO ADVENT POINT
IT is so easy to have one's tents pitched for one, and such a
bother to do it for one's self, especially in a wind, when
the canvas bulges the wrong way, all the ropes entangle them
selves together, and the whole thing falls, just before the
main cord is fixed to its peg. The number of pegs seems
endless when you have to knock them in yourself, and the
fly, if you have one, becomes a burden. Then all your
things have to be put in places where they can be found,
and by the time that is done there is cooking to be taken
in hand, and everything needs seeking and finding. To
move our camp this day a distance of three miles involved
about eight hours of continuous hard work, but we thought
the time and labour well spent. A new prospect was before
us, and a new area for work was opened.
The auspicious occasion was celebrated by a dinner, to
which Mr. Jorgensen came with his famulus. He brought
no news from the wide world, but some gossip of Advent
Bay. From him we first learned how Dr. Jeaffreson's party
came up with the weekly steamer, and landed on July 10
at Advent Bay. Mr. With, the manager of the Vesteraalen
Company, took them and their little Norwegian row-boat
across in the Exprcs to Cape Thordsen, and left them
there in Nordenskjold's House. Their boat, being insuffi
ciently moored to the shore, was presently washed away,
and came drifting back to Advent Bay, where it was found.
The party, thus cut off from return, did not have long to

chap, xvn ADVENT POINT 229
wait. By good fortune some men rowed over at this time
from Advent Bay to fetch the winterers' stuff, and Dr.
Jeaffreson and his companions returned with them. On
the 25th, Dr. Jeaffreson and one of his companions went
back to Norway, leaving behind their artist, Mr. R. Huyshe
Walkey, who, after a long stay at Advent Point, returned to
Europe with Baron de Geer.1
Meanwhile the heavens had cleared and the evening was
brilliant, so that we could taste all the charm of the new
point of view. Not that there were many new hills in sight,
but the old ones were freshly combined and better seen.
This, for instance, is the point where the Temple, with its
long side somewhat foreshortened, shows best. Hence too
you look straight up all the length of Post Glacier, which
composes beside the Temple and draws back its great even
length most imposingly. If a man had nothing to do, he
might as pleasantly do it in fine weather sitting at this spot
as anywhere else in the summer world.
After dinner I wandered off to the point of the delta,
where is a raised gravel bar, recently elevated from below
the waters. Gregory followed, intending to collect in and
about the small lagoon behind the bar. We began wading
streams, and so moved on from point to point, till it became
obvious that we had gone for a real walk instead of turning
into bed. We crossed the whole delta, sometimes in beds
of streams, sometimes on gravel spits, sometimes in soft mud,
but oftenest over mossy bogs, the mossiest we had anywhere
seen. Beyond the delta came the steep hill-side again,
with the hyperite cliff apparently faulted some way on.
1 The story of the misfortune of this party with their boat at Cape Thordsen
found its way in an exaggerated form into the London press. It was stated that
their "walrus-boat" was "pinched on shore in the land water on July 1 6 near
the mouth of Dickson Bay by the heavy pack-ice," &c. The actual facts, as
above related, were confirmed to me by Mr. With, and by ice-master Bottolfsen of
the Expres.

230 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvii
The fault became our goal, and its existence was duly
established. This hill-side and the marsh are some of the best places
in Spitsbergen for flowers. They grew between the stones
and on the mud-banks with a vigour surprising in so high
a latitude. But there was nothing this evening, save the
snowy heights, to suggest that we were within the Arctic
Circle. The sun was warm, the fjord quite clear of ice, the
slopes green. More than ever was the comparison suggested
with a fine spring day in the Italian lakes ; only the air was
a little denser here, and the sky a paler shade of blue. If a
month of such weather could always be foretold, Spitsbergen
would become a favourite summer resort, and its shores
would produce a crop of hotels. The midnight sun poured
a stream of light in at the tent door when we returned to
camp, and made it seem an absurdity to go to bed, the more
so that a new sail hove in sight and revealed three men in
a boat rounding Hyperite Hat, and possibly bound for us.
Expectation often disappointed becomes wary. Perhaps it
made us too wary this time. The boat actually contained
Garwood with Williamson and a sailor. They saw our tents,
but Williamson declared they were not ours, and that we were
camped close to Post Glacier. The man is a complete fool.
In order not to lose the wind they kept away out and sailed
on. Had we fired a shot they would probably have come to
us and saved a lot of trouble. They had to row back next
morning against a gentle breeze, and when they reached
Jorgensen Camp we were gone.
For this day (July 28) opened so mildly, with water so
calm and sun so bright, that even the botanist was not afraid
for his boat, and gave us willing leave to borrow it and make
for Advent Bay. Accordingly, whilst Gregory went through
his plant collection with our worthy friend, I packed up
camp and in due season we rowed away, leaving with our

chap, xvii ADVENT POINT 231
kind host three joints of reindeer and some bottles of beer,
enough I should think to keep him going a long time, for
he ate less than a bird. The boat was clumsy, deep in the
water with its heavy load, but we settled down to work,
following a school of white whales, whose long, ugly backs
came bulging out of the water one after another in serpentine
succession. All the air and surface of the fjord was gay
with birds of the usual kinds, but they were so many and
so lively — the little auks diving on all sides, the guillemots
hurrying about in companies, the fulmar petrels each going
about his own business alone. Several fulmars came to look
at us and passed close over our heads, perhaps giving a
little squeak as they went, the sole note of emotion that this
expressionless bird possesses.
Our first work was to round the delta at the mouth of
De Geer Valley. Where streams empty into the fjord, great
muddy tongues protrude into the blue waters and wag with
the ebb and flow of the tide. The muddy water is a thin
film on the top of the blue, and the sculls cut eddies through
it and revealed the clearness below. Slow was our progress,
yet the bank kept moving by and the view changing. We
saw the last of Post Glacier and closed it out. Hyperite
Hat came nearer. After two hours' rowing we pulled in
at the foot of the promontory, and I landed and climbed it
for the view. And what a view it was, from the old
tumble-down cairn on the top, built one wonders by whom
and what for ! There was no new feature in sight, save
some hills near the head of Klaas Billen Bay, hills of rather
interesting form, with snow domes above one or two of
them, and glaciers and snow cols between. But there is
always novelty in every view, for light and air give rise to
constant change, and to-day the light was particularly
sparkling, and the calm bay flashed back not lines but tiny
points of sunshine from its ripples. The Boheman glaciers

232 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvii
were all faint with the brilliancy pouring over them from
the sun.
Rowing on, close under the shadowed and overhanging
cliff, which the sun presently peeped round and striped
with gold, its really small size was forgotten, and the
columnar rocks, though only a hundred feet high, gained
all the dignity of noble precipices. In places they were
red with lichens, elsewhere spattered with patches of white,
signs of the nesting-place of many bird-colonies, little auks,
guillemots, and puffins. A rifle-shot fired at the rock filled
the air with a feathery cloud, but the birds only swung
out a few hundred yards over the water, then rounded
back, and settled again ; nor did they budge when we
approached their nests closely from the shore. There were
hundreds of young ones, some already able to fly, others
mere balls of fluff. We caught a young guillemot after
a chase over fallen rocks below the cliff, under one of
which he took refuge. From his cave-like retreat he pecked
vigorously at his captors, but once held he was as serene
and composed as could be.
While we were inspecting the nests, a boat came round
the promontory, the way we had come, and made straight
for us. It was rowed with a long and swinging stroke, far
more suggestive of Eton than Norway. A few moments
settled the doubt — it contained Garwood and two sailors,
hurrying to catch up with us, for they had found the
botanist and heard from him of our departure. Glad
men were we at this encounter. We rowed to a narrow
beach below the cliff and landed our things, just where a
great snow-bank overhung. The sailors were sent off to take
the borrowed boat back to the botanist, and return to us
overland. I for one was not sorry for the long halt thus
involved, for we had a most lovely picnic ground, sheltered
by cliffs behind, and shone on by the full glory of a clear

chap, xvii ADVENT POINT

233

afternoon sun. It goes without saying that there were
stories to exchange, but they were only briefly told, for

CLIFFS NEAR HYPERITE HA I'.

Garwood was bearer of mails from home, letters and news
papers, which we greedily devoured, each of us seated on a

234 SPITSBERGEN chap, xvii
convenient rock, with the water lapping at our feet, the boat
bumping on the shingle, and the birds fluttering above from
their shelf-planted nests. A knob of ice that afterwards fell
close to Gregory's head suggested that we might have
chosen a safer reading-room.
Long such charming conditions could not be expected
to last. The change came very gradually. A white bank
of fog formed upon the water, blotting out all save the
tips of the hills. It lay almost motionless at first, only
drifting or crawling about; presently it condensed into
clouds, which rose and strewed themselves about and over
the hills, darkening the landscape and chilling the air. This
was the end of the Spitsbergen summer. With the turn of
the tide came a wind, far too fresh, which soon tumbled
the water about and covered the fjord with white caps.
When the men came back and we could set forth, wind
and tide were against us. The sail could not be used, and
hard rowing was our fate for fifteen miles or more. The
waves grew bigger, catching our boat on the quarter and
splashing over. It was a bucketing row. Gregory and I
landed for a time to walk along the shore for survey and
collecting. We found a cauliflower and half a pine
apple on the beach ; not brought by the Gulf-stream
from warmer climes, but by the great Hamburg steamer
Columbia, which had recently visited Advent Bay with a
cargo of tourists. The pleasant wralk on shore soon came
to an end, for eastward of Advent Bay are a series of cliffs
which must be turned by water.
Now there was rocking and misery afloat, and a cold
that froze the marrow in one's bones. Happy were the
rowers. I sat or rather lay in the stern on a pile of
goods, making notes of the coast-line with trembling
fingers and no slight tendency to mal de mer, foul visitant,
not, alas ! confined to the hateful ocean. We turned

chap, xvii ADVENT POINT 235
corner after corner, buoyed up with hopes that at each we
should be able to set the sail and run for our goal. But
always the wind changed with the bending coast, which
it so encircled as to be dead in our teeth at every point.
At length the bluffs beyond Advent Point came in view
and were greeted with a shout. But still there was elbow
after elbow to be passed, each with a huge fallen rock
at its foot. The view was in the main invariable — always
the sloping, crumbling cliff on our left hand, the fringe
of rocks below, and then the turbulent sea. At last the
cliffs ended, a low point remained to be passed, and we
should hoist the sail and slip into and across the bay.
But no ! as we rounded the point the wind ceased. The
waves remained for an hour or two apparently as large as
ever, but there was no breath of air ; the tide slackened.
For form's sake we hoisted the sail, but the rowing had to
continue to the bitter end.
An hour long our goal was in sight, clear beneath the
low, thick cloud-blanket. Many were the changes that had
been made at Advent Point during our five weeks' absence
in the interior. The bare, bleak shore, on whose snowy
edge we first landed, now carried a spick-and-span little
wooden inn, to which finishing touches of paint and
carpentry were being applied. There was another camp
too, likewise of green canvas tents, not far from ours, the
camp of Mr. Walkey. There were also various piles of
stores belonging to the inn, to the Swedish party, or to
the men at work patching up the wrecked cutter of the
winterers. About 4.30 a.m. (July 29) we landed, and the dreary
work of pitching camp with frozen fingers followed. Our
heavy baggage was in a chaotic condition, stowed under
tarpaulins and ground - sheets, everybody's possessions
jostled anyhow with, under, or above every one else's, tins,

236

SPITSBERGEN chap xvii

hay, sacks of oats, cooking things all mixed together. To
render cosmic such a chaos was the work of many hours,
and could only be commenced after the tents were pitched,
and each became a centre for the accumulation of its
owner's particular baggage. The whole of the day that
followed after a long sleep was occupied with the same

ABANDONED WINTERERS HUT.

business, and not till late could we look round in peace,
knowing where we were and what we had.
The hours of sleep were hours of heavy rain, which
drenched everything we had left about ; but when break
fast-time came, perhaps at four o'clock in the afternoon,
rain ceased and the weather manifested a dignified reserve.
Clouds withdrew aloft and gathered themselves into fine
lines and mottled areas, all grey and still, for there was not
a breath of air, and the fjord was glassy and leaden, the

chap, xvii ADVENT POINT 237
only ripples upon it being caused by diving birds. Bleared
smudges of light showed the whereabouts of the sun. Hills
were of purple and pallid white. A great solemnity brooded
over the land. Bars of low grey mist trailed across the
slopes, constantly changing in place and form, whilst patches
of very thin fog gathered on some of the crags like flecks
of eider-down. Notwithstanding the clouds, we could see
up Advent Vale to Bunting Bluff, Fox Peak, and the slopes
and side valleys where we toiled a month before. It was
pleasant thus to encounter them again, now that we knew
what was round each corner, and could feel that the mys
teries and problems they so recently presented had been
for the most part successfully solved.
Just as the preliminary call to dinner was being shouted
(2.30 a.m., July 30) a boat was seen approaching. It proved
to be ours with Trevor-Battye, Ted, and Pedersen returning
from Dickson Bay. Great were the rejoicings over the
festive board, where all five members of our party were
reunited once more. What tales there were to exchange !
Each had seen finer glaciers, grander mountains, nobler and
more interesting scenery generally than the other. It was
Dickson Sound against Agardh Bay.
Long the talk lasted, and many were the mutual explana
tions. Trevor-Battye had not come to Sassen Bay for us,
because he believed he had arranged with the men working
at the winterers' wreck to come and fetch us on a given
date. They made no attempt to do so, and declared they
never undertook to come. There was evidently a misunder
standing, not worth the expenditure of time to unravel.
Lost time could not be regained. By hook or by crook
our party was reunited. That was the main thing.

CHAPTER XVIII
REPORT UPON EKMAN BAY AND
DICKSON BAY
By AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE
THE fjord system that penetrates Spitsbergen from the
south northward is separable into two principal bodies
of water, Ice Fjord and North Fjord. Of these North
Fjord, lying north of a line joining Cape Boheman with
Cape Thordsen, separates to the north into two divisions —
Ekman Bay and Dickson Bay.
Dickson Bay is seldom entered, because its mouth is
almost closed by a jut of land ; the bay itself is very
shallow, and the ice, drifted and accumulated in the
narrow entry, may render the exit of a boat impossible
for weeks together at a time. At the northern end of
Dickson Bay is a neck of land, on the other side of
which lies Wijde Bay. This neck connects the two land
areas of West Spitsbergen, which may therefore be com
pared to a (very irregular) dumb-bell. The link obviously
offers a possible way of escape to the crews of vessels
entrapped by the descending ice-pack in the neighbour
hood of the Seven Islands, or of Verlegen Hook, and it
would be impossible to overrate the value of a crossing well
laid down. =38

Cape Boheman prom Cape Waern

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY

239

I asked Conway's leave to visit this bay while he was
occupied with others of his party in crossing to Agardh Bay.
This leave he most kindly gave. His cousin, H. E. Conway,
the artist to the expedition, was also to come ; at least until

. .. .\.^^..

~0&"  i^~N.v,

HEAD OF WIJDE BAY.

we found a place for an artist's studies. Conway also kindly
spared us Pedersen as boatman, so that we were a party
of three. We were to take the whale-boat, and we had a
fortnight's leave.1

1 A small misunderstanding here. — W. M. C.

240 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii
We left Advent Bay on the evening of July 13. It
was exceedingly unpleasant with rain and wind, but
was clearer over Sassen Bay, into which we had a fine
view as we passed. Then the fog fell and we were among
the ice.
We had had some idea of landing at the entry by
Nordenskjold's House, but this was impossible. Cape Thord
sen itself was almost invisible when we passed it.
July 14. Wind SWT. Bar. 29.50. — We had a great
deal of ice to work through, but landed early on this
morning at the mouth of the Saurie River, between
Cape Thordsen and Middle Hook. Here the river and
the sea have built up a bar and a beach, behind which
lies a little lake forming a harbour capable of holding
many boats. We camped on the beach in driving rain
with ice-floes driven by the wind on shore, and lifted by
the rising tide in places on to the top of the beach and
close to the tent.
I went out in the boat again, and landed on a large
ice-floe, which might easily have been taken for an island,
it was so piled up with stones and mud. I walked along
the hills for several hours, but the fog was such that it was
impossible to get an extended view. I, however, gained
the impression that there is but one valley here, though
this of considerable extent. On the seaward side of the
mountains to the north, a wide flat of turf and lichen
runs for a long distance. Conway with admirable per
severance managed to make a sketch in oils in spite of
the wet.
July 15. Wind SW. Bar. 29.30. — Proceeding on our
way we pulled for three hours in pelting rain and hampered
by ice till we sighted Cape Wijk. Entry into Dickson Bay
was impossible ; the way was absolutely blocked under the

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY 241
south-westerly gale, and the whole sea to the north was
closely packed with floes that ground together and would
have stove in the boat. To the west, however, the sea was
clear, and we hoisted sail and ran for Cape Waern.1 We
landed on one of its two islands, where many eiders were
breeding ; and afterwards ran the boat at Cape Waern on
to a terrace worn by the sea in the chert rock.
Coincident with our landing fell a remarkable change
in the weather — the rain stopped, the wind died away, and
we were in sunshine. The impression made both upon
Conway and myself by the place and the circumstances
of the time, I suppose neither is likely to forget. The
sudden clearness, the deep water (literally clear as a crystal),
the marvellous wealth of sea-weed, the splendour of the
great glacier at the head of the bay, the sharp blue peaks
of the nunatak-like mountains which separated glacier from
glacier westward over the bay to Cape Boheman ; the contrast,
on the other hand, where over Cape Thordsen and Advent
Bay wreaths of storm-torn clouds were still coiling, and
finally a carpet of flowers — andromeda, saxifrages, dryas —
more luxuriant by far than I have elsewhere seen them in
the Arctics, all contributed to the same effect. However,
this report is not the place in which to dwell upon im
pressions, but just as in the course of our first walk upon
the cliffs, we found ourselves speaking in superlatives of
the " splendid " glacier and of our plateau as the " flower-
garden," so these became the names the two things took.
By the " Flower-Garden " I shall mean the whole of a
plateau which is included south and 'north by Cape Waern
and by the range of mountains ending in the Colosseum, and
east and west by the sea. The strata of which this is com-
1 Cape Waern is the name of the point between Dickson and Ekman bays, wrongly
named Cape Wijk on the Admiralty chart. Cape Wijk is the point E. of the entrance
to Dickson Bay. — W. M. C. Q

242 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii
posed dip from north-east to south-west, at such an angle
that the chert bed on which our boat lay at Cape Waern
was once continuous with the same formation which now
makes some of the highest bedding in the Capitolium Moun
tain, and possibly with those of the east side of Dickson Bay.
Going northward, the gradually rising plateau becomes over
laid with carboniferous rock, with here and there dolomitic
traces. For large areas over the plateau the chert is so
entirely disintegrated, and is laid so level, that it presents a
surface like that of a road freshly metalled with finely broken
flints. Upon the plateau, separated from one another by a
wide interval, are two very remarkable boulders, evidently
glacier-borne. They would measure some eight feet in
height by eight in diameter, and are schistic in formation.
There are several reindeer here, and they are very tame.
July 16. Wind SE. Bar. 29.60. — The wind rose again,
but without rain. Conway sketched while I visited the
Splendid Glacier, sailing down easily, and landing at the
western shore almost at the glacier foot. There is a wide
stretch of flat vegetation between the shore and the hills
to the west, and I could find no evidence that the glacier
was advancing upon it. The current of this glacier is
now setting in an easterly direction, as I shall presently
show. A result of this changed direction (if the direction,
as I feel convinced, has changed) is that that which was
once a terminal moraine is now a lateral moraine, if con
sidered in relation to the main stream of the glacier ; and
evidence is not wanting to show that the old moraine is
now partly overlaid by the thin lip of the glacier's edge, and
that the debris which falls to the front is actually falling side
ways as the glacier moves. This western side of the glacier
over which I walked for some distance is not broken, nor
much crevassed, but is a system of smooth undulations and
of glacier lakes.

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY 243
On the western sea-front of the glacier, and some 200
yards removed from it, is a small island on which I landed.
This island is part of a moraine. It was evidently in a
state of movement, but from what agency was not so clear,
though it seemed to be subject to some pushing pressure
below the water.
Upon our Admiralty chart a large island is marked to
the north of Ekman Bay, but for this I looked in vain, for
reasons which shall presently appear.
We had a very long and hard pull back with the heavy
boat in the teeth of the wind.
July 17. Wind SE. Bar. 29.50. — During the whole of
this day we had a strong wind with a cold driving rain,
which made it difficult to do very much, though I collected
many plants and geological specimens. I also walked round
the eastern shore of the Flower-Garden, and inspected the
entrance to Dickson Bay, which was clearer of ice than
before. July 18. Wind SE. Bar. 29.15. — Nothing could well be
worse than the weather. It rained and blew a gale all day
and was very cold.
July 19. Wind E. to S. Bar. 29.30. — The weather had
cleared ; it was sunny and still, and for the first time since
our arrival we could see Cape Boheman and the other points
and glaciers just across the bay.
I was under way early in the morning to explore Dickson
Bay, leaving Conway with firewood and provisions for a
week, and taking Pedersen with me in the whale-boat. After
four hours of working through the ice-floes we came into
clear water, and a breeze springing up, we set sail. The
entrance to the bay and its lower end were clear of ice.
I landed first at the promontory called Cape Smith.
This promontory is fringed by a high beach considerably
above the level of the adjacent land. It was thick in drift-

244 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii
wood under which I found a vast number of Collembola,
which Sir John Lubbock, who has written a well-known
monograph on this order, is kindly working out. The Col
lembola are wingless insects, and many of them are charac
terised by a complete absence of tracheae.
Next I landed at "Velvet Lawn," the name I gave to a
large stretch of sloping ground covered with an extra
ordinary dark-green growth of Dryas octopetala, which had
evidently flowered very early. I could not find a single
flower of this plant that had not gone to seed. Velvet
Lawn culminates in a strange semicircle of separate moun
tain bluffs. I called them the " Conclave," they looked so
much like a sitting of old gods. Their protection to the
north, and the influence of the eastern and southern sun,
might account for the early flowering of the plant.
From here northward to the beginning of the tidal mud,
the water was covered with " bay ice," as the walrus hunters
call it. This is ice which, formed in bays, is still unbroken
up, though melted very thin by the early summer heat.
Hundreds of seals, old and young, were lying upon this
by the side of their old blow-holes. Between this and
the shore, however, was a stretch of land-water filled with
moving and grounded floes, through which we worked the
boat. We landed next at " The Glen," as I named a wide
entry among the hills which leads on the north - west to
a long winding valley up which Pedersen walked to look
for reindeer, but without success. This area is partly a
river-bed, partly a stretch of vegetation, and contains two
small-sized lakes. To the north the mountains approach
the bay at right angles, but southward more gradually, so
that the open area tapers in this direction till the moun
tains again almost reach the bay some two miles lower down.
The river from the valley curls as it enters the glen, wind
ing close round the base of the hill which forms the glen's

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY 245
northern boundary, to spread out into a little delta as it
reaches the bay. The western side of the glen at its
widest part is occupied by a yellowish-grey carboniferous
limestone hill, overlying a base of red Devonian, very curi
ously hollowed out, and resembling a gigantic arm-chair,
so that I called it the "Giant's Chair."
From the seat of this chair, which was partly filled with
snow, two large avalanches of stones poured down with
a loud noise.
July 20. Wind SW. Bar. 30.50. Ther. 720 Fahr. in sun
at ten a.m. — Piled on the beach of the glen was very much
drifted wood, and we were able to build with this and the
sail of the boat a place to sleep in.
The morning broke clear and sunny. I climbed to
near the summit of the Red Hill, 1100 feet by aneroid, and
inspected the head of the bay. Red Hill is the first moun
tain on the western side of the bay, entirely of red Devonian.
Thence to the north all are Devonian, or only the highest
peaks are capped with carboniferous rock.
Not only is this red colour in itself most striking, but
the purples played upon it by the sun are intense, and give
a peculiar beauty to the whole head of the bay.
In trying to go northwards from this point we narrowly
escaped running aground. Thereafter we touched ground
several times, and had much difficulty in getting off. We
could not punt, because the floor of the bay was of the
softest boulder-clay, so we pulled through the mud inch
by inch. A very considerable portion of even the upper,
navigable part of the bay is exceedingly shallow, up to
the point where the bottom suddenly rises by an escarp
ment some two feet high, and becomes a tidal mud-flat
quite exposed at low water. We eventually worked our
way across, and camped at the point I have marked in
the map as Dome-View Camp.

246 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii
July 21. Wind very changeable, N. to S. Bar. 29.55.
Clear. — I called this Dome-View Camp because of a striking
dome of snow, which is visible from this point, standing up
against the blue sky to the north of the bay.
I began the day by walking towards the head of the
bay and back, about eight miles in all. From the point
I reached I had a clear view of the moraine which masks
the north-west glacier, and determined to follow that route
later on. I did not know that it was a glacier ; it does not
so appear, but looks like a valley filled with the moraine of
an old glacier now extinct, so entirely is it masked by the
piles of debris at its foot. About mid-day I left again with
Pedersen, who was to come for companionship as far as
the head of the bay, and then carry my gun back. The
distance from our camp to the foot of the moraine was about
eight miles. We did not accomplish it without some diffi
culty, due to the river-torrents we had to wade ; and when
we foolishly tried to cross the mud at the head of the bay
we sank so deeply, or rather were so sucked in, that we
ran considerable danger of remaining there altogether. This
moraine is very extensive ; it is formed of piles of sand, and
clay, and talus, and where a small stream has cut its way
through the centre of the moraine, the walls rise on either
side in places to a height of thirty feet.
This, however, is not the main stream of the glacier,
which is more formidable altogether, and passing under
the hills to the north of the glacier, breaks up into many
fingers, and forms, with the streams that enter from north
and north-east, a wide shelving stony track at the head of
the bay mud. We reached the face of the glacier itself
at the end of an hour. This face presents three smooth,
black, convex bastions, and arises precipitously to a height of
perhaps seventy feet. It would have been unscalable, but for
the fact that at one point, and one only, a talus slope led to

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY 247
the top. The glacier itself for some distance was covered
with large conical heaps of mud with stone tables supported
on pedestals of ice, and with liquid hollows of clay. It
is a large and wide ice-field, and is the confluence of various
glaciers. Many glacier - streams find their way over this
ice-field. Sometimes they are but shallow troughs ; some
times they cut down into its depth in blue ravines ; some
times they are suddenly lost, falling perpendicularly into
bottomless caverns, or reverberating from glacier mills. But
none of this ice-field is, strictly speaking, crevassed. I made
a careful observation with the compass bearings upon posi
tion, rise, or incline of the various glaciers and cols. It
was cold work, however, especially as we had become very
wet in our passage of the rivers and the bay, and it was not
long before I sent Pedersen back and travelled on alone.
The glacier marked at the north-east of the ice-field was
the one I determined to attempt, because it was clear that
its direction promised best. I should at least, I hoped, be
able to reach some point from which I could see down
to Wijde Bay. In this I was disappointed, as indeed I
deserved to be, without ice-axe, companions, or ropes upon
a dangerous glacier. This glacier, unlike all the others
which flow into the ice-field, does not meet it by an insen
sible gradation, but drops suddenly, and presents a snout
which has a rounded backbone split by a deep crevasse
at every few feet. At first these were narrow, and I had no
difficulty in stepping across them, but they got worse and
worse, until having crossed one by a snow-bridge which
yielded under me, I was brought up by another of con
siderable width which offered a crossing at one point only,
where an immense wedge of ice appeared to be firmly
jammed between its walls. Having no ice-axe with me, I
was obliged to test this very cautiously with my toe, when the
whole thing fell in powder and crash. Hitherto the crevasses

248 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii
had been plain to see, for the snow was almost all melted
away ; but even could I have passed this crevasse I could
have gone little farther, for between the point and 3the col
the glacier was covered with snow.
Although I was unable to reach it I could see the col
against the sky-line a mile or so farther on, and I have no
doubt that this will some day prove the passage to Wijde
Bay. By the time I returned to camp I was ready to sleep,
as I had walked for twenty-one hours that day.
July 22. Wind NW., cold and sunless. — On this day
we left Dome-View Camp at 9.30 P.M. for the Flower-Garden.
We stopped by the way to take sketches of the bay under
Lyktan, where we could not land because of the shallows,
though we landed again at a point lower down, as marked
on the map. Here lies a clear little bay and a deep water.
I will now describe the leading features of the eastern side
of Dickson Bay.
Owing to the peculiar form of the weathered limestone
rock which overlies the Devonian, the tops of the hills on
both sides of the bay bear fantastic resemblances to castles
and crowns, and other objects. Thus Lyktan was so named
by Stjernspetz from its resemblance to the lantern of a light
house. In the valley which lies about its base there is a
central mountain resembling a Moorish citadel, and another
not unlike the Taage. From this valley three dales branch,
one to the north-east, one to the east, and a third to the
south-east. The entrance to the third is from the bay only
just visible where it leaves the second of these three.
The bedding of these mountains inclines towards the
south-west, the red Devonian being gradually lost until
in the long Table Mountain marked on the plan it appears
only as buttresses about its base. Again towards the south
the grey limestone is overlaid with seams of chert, and these
again by yellow rock of dolomitic character. The spit

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY 249
which so nearly closes the entrance to Dickson Bay
appeared to me, although I did not land on it, to be a car
boniferous terrace denuded to that point.
July 23. Wind N. to SE., clear, but no sun until night. —
After we reached the Flower-Garden at 4.50 A.M. I had so
much occupation with writing and specimens that I did
little else all day ; Conway during my absence had made some
most charming sketches.
July 24. — We now moved to Glacier Camp, Conway and
Pedersen pulling in the boat, and I walking down to meet
them a distance of about nine miles. We spent four days
in an examination of the head of Ekman Bay before we
finally left.
July 24. Wind NW. Bar. 29.50. — Flies and mosquitoes.
July 25. Wind NW. Bar. 29.60. Ther. 820 Fahr. in the
sun. — Mosquitoes bad.
July 26. Wind NE. Bar. 29.65. Ther. 720 in the sun. —
Mosquitoes bad.
July 27. Wind NE. Bar. 29.70. — Blew half a gale and
snowed. Early in this exploration I was able to solve the mystery
of the undiscoverable island. The Splendid Glacier is ad
vancing at a rapid rate. It now presents three fronts to
the sea, a south-western, a south-eastern, and an eastern
front. From these two latter faces the glacier rises in a
jagged area of seracs. Between the south-western and
south-eastern faces an apex juts boldly out into the sea,
and at the time of our visit two immense pinnacles reared
themselves from the water, all but separated to their
base from the main mass. This _double face of seracs,
pushed from behind and undermined by the waves, is
constantly falling, so that approach in a boat would be a
dangerous experiment. The whole of the sea west of
the large island, shown by the survey to have existed

250 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii
there not twenty years ago, is now filled by the advancing
glacier. More than half of the island is also overspread.
Without moraine, without dirt or discoloration, the glacier
is pouring over it, and great seracs lie there, separated
only, or barely separated, from the flowers and the grasses
by the clear stream their drip has formed. A phenomenon
more striking than the contrast of the green island with
the icy boulders strewn along it, and the grim whiteness
which rises so suddenly behind, would be hard to conceive.
Nor is this all ; for northwards also of the island the glacier
is advancing, and at its present obvious rate of progress it
cannot be many years before, united with the glacier which
comes from the north, it will have entirely obliterated the
head of the bay.
Further, since this survey was made, owing no doubt
to the resulting change in the set of the tidal and river
current, a stony beach of very considerable extent has
raised itself from the water under the Capitolium, and
forms two sides of a little harbour, where we were able to
ride very peaceably during a time of storm.
At the back of our camp rose cliffs of hyperite entirely
disconnected from the main mountain, but forming the
highest point of the plateau which drops to the Flower-
Garden. Between Glacier Camp and the eastern angle of the
bay are the remains of what was once a hut occupied by
Russians. The remains of their utensils, of their glass
windows, brick oven, and other belongings, are still scattered
about. This part of the bay is very wrongly entered on the
chart. From Glacier Camp the coast line diverges suddenly
to the east, forming a distinct angle with the Capitolium
and a carboniferous terrace which runs up from the shore
line to meet the mountains.

chap, xviii EKMAN BAY 251
I should be sorry to end this report without once more
expressing my sense of the kind willingness with which
the leader of the Spitsbergen expedition allowed me thus
to do a little bit of personal exploration. Although I was
naturally disappointed at my failure to cross to Wijde Bay,
my account may, I hope, be useful to some future explor
ing party ; for it is too dangerous a glacier to be attempted
single-handed. Not a little of the memory of a very happy time I owe
to the unfailing cheeriness and good fellowship, under often
dull conditions, of our artist H. E. Conway, my friend and
companion at the Flower-Garden.

CHAPTER XIX
AT ADVENT POINT
ONE important piece of work had, if possible, to be
done at Advent Point. It was to take observations
for latitude and a true bearing of Bunting Bluff. There are
discrepancies in the latitude of Advent Bay as set down in
the published charts. These will be set at rest by Baron
De Geer's observations, which, however, will not be reduced
before this volume sees the light. It was highly desirable,
therefore, that I should obtain an independent observation.
Unfortunately the fine weather was now at an end. Days
passed and the sun did not appear. The same clouded sky,
which condemned the theodolite to idleness when we were
at Advent] Point before, reigned throughout the whole of
this second visit. Each day seemed colder, cloudier, and
more wet than the one that went before. My tent unfor
tunately had no window. If I closed the doors for warmth
it was dark, and I could not be] employed ; if I opened them
for light, the cold prevented any continuous sedentary
occupation. So unpromising, indeed, were the meteorological condi
tions, that I should have quitted the place at once if it had
been possible so to do ; but it was not possible. Of our
four sledges, two were wrecked and two were in hospital at
Hammerfest. They ought to have been returned a fortnight
before, or two native sledges ought to have come up in
their stead, but the north Norwegian takes his time over
everything. In fact, apologies only, not sledges, had come.

chap, xix AT ADVENT POINT 253
It was promised that they should arrive by the tourist
steamer Lofoten on July 31. There was nothing for it,
therefore, but to wait and make preparations as complete
as possible for a fresh adventure inland. Thus two whole
days slipped away in chilly inaction, the cloud-pall growing
ever denser and lower, the showers more frequent, and the
winds more keen.
The best published series of observations of Spitsbergen
meteorology are those made at Cape Thordsen, between
August 15, 1882, and August 23, 1883, by a well-equipped
Swedish party.1 They showed that, during the period in
question, the average number of hours when the sun shone
was as follows : During May, 10.8 hours ; during June, 6.7 ;
during July, 7 ; during August, 6.7 ; during September, 2.2.
August was the calmest month, E., ESE.,|and WSW. winds
being commonest. The average velocity of the winds that
blew was moderate and almost uniform throughout May,
June, and July ; then it rose steadily till November. The
quantity of clouds reached a maximum at the beginning
of June, a minimum at the end of July, and a second
maximum at the beginning of September. Precipitation
was slight and diminishing in May, less but increasing
in June, still slight but a little more rapidly increasing
in July, still more rapidly increasing in August to a
maximum at the beginning of September. The mean
barometric pressure was very uniform in May, June, and
July, but fell steadily throughout August to a minimum at
the beginning of September. The mean air-temperature
rose continuously from —5° Cent, in May to about + 50, at
which it stood throughout July; it fell steadily to — i" at
1 Exploration internationale des Rlgions polaires, 1882-83; Observations faites
au Cap Thordsen, &c. , publie'es par I' Acadimie royal des Sciences de Sulde, tome i.,
Stockholm, 1891, 4to. See also Observations mHeorologiqiies de F Expidition arctique
Suedoise, 1872-73, ridigies par A. Wijkander, in the Mem. de FAcad. R. des Sciences
de Suide, tome xii., No. 7.

254 SPITSBERGEN chap, xix
the end of August, and thereafter less rapidly to the first
winter minimum in December. From these observations it
would appear that July was the finest month, August much
less fine, and September still worse. Our experience during
the time of our visit was fully in harmony with these
conclusions. July 1896 was, on the whole, a fine month. There were
many bad days, but there were likewise many fine ones.
The bad weather set in on July 28, and continued thence
forward. I was destined not to see the sun from Advent
Point. It is unfortunate for Spitsbergen that its best harbour
should be so uninterestingly situated as Advent Bay is. The
island is rich in fine scenery, full of novelty to a traveller
from temperate regions, full of interest too for every student
of nature. But Advent Bay does not command views specially
remarkable or characteristic, nor is Advent Point a com
fortable spot. It is exposed to every wind that blows, and
there is always a draught over it between the valley and the
fjord. The ground is damp, the near hills uninteresting,
whilst the way to the interior is the worst up any valley we
saw. The tourist who spends a single day of bad weather
at Advent Point sees nothing not equally visible in foggy
and wet hours near the mouth of the Thames.
The moment the Lofoten came in and the sledges were
delivered, we began to load them up for a start. Our plan
was to divide into two parties. My cousin and I were to
go inland again with Pedersen and make our way over the
hills to Coles Bay, thence to Low Sound, up the valley of
the Shallow River, and so back by Bolter Pass. The others
were to take the boat and spend the time collecting fossils
at Green Harbour and Klaas Billen Bay, classical sites
where Nordenskjold and others found famous things. All
were to meet again at Advent Bay on the 15th and sail
home together. It was a good enough plan, but the pour-

chap, xix AT ADVENT POINT

255

ing skies damped any enthusiasm there might have been
for it. We worked at our preparations in silence with
shivering limbs.
Presently the little twelve-ton steamer Expres also came to
anchor in the bay. She, like the Lofoten, was run by the
Vesteraalen Company for the convenience of tourists. The

THE " EXPRES " IN ADVENT BAY.

arrangements were these : Each week the Lofoten left
Hammerfest with a complement of passengers, showed them
Bear Island and the west coast of South Spitsbergen, and
brought them to Advent Bay. Those who desired might
disembark and make the inn their headquarters for a week.
During this time the Expres gave them an opportunity of
running up to see AndreVs balloon at Danes Island, or
making some other excursion. On this occasion she had

256 SPITSBERGEN chap, xix
taken a bolder trip, and steamed on from Danes Island
along the north coast and down Hinloopen Strait nearly to
Cape Torell— an astonishing record, as any one acquainted
with Spitsbergen literature will perceive. As a rule, the
ice-pack permits no such casual rambling. Lamont, who
spent several summers hunting in Spitsbergen waters, with
all the advantages of an excellently-found vessel, was never
able to get beyond the mouth of Liefde Bay, or, in the
other direction, beyond the Rijk Yse Islands. The summer
of 1896 was, in fact, a very exceptional one. Quite early in
the year vessels returned from the north with wonderful
tales of open sea. Captain Bade's excursion steamer, the
Ei-ling Jarl, advanced (about July 28) to 81" 40' north
latitude before meeting the pack. Away to the north-east
the sea was reported clear of ice. The same story was told
by others. The Expres saw no ice anywhere. From Cape
Torell none was in sight. The sea was open.
It is interesting to note what were Mr. ackson's simul
taneous experiences in Franz Josef Land.
"Since the middle of February 1896," he writes, "we
have had weather I believe to be unprecedented in this
latitude. The thermometers during this time have been
hovering close up in the neighbourhood of freezing-point,
and we have had in consequence great quantities of snow,
which lies deep and wet on the floes. On March 5 the
air was as balmy as June. There have been no cold winds
to harden the snow on the floes, and it is almost impos
sible to drag the sledges across it. Our furs get dripping
wet, and when the inevitable fall in temperature comes
they are frozen hard as steel." This unusual condition of
weather caused a great body of open water to form in the
northern parts of the Franz Josef Land Archipelago.
We did not know these facts, but we knew enough to
cause a great disturbance in our minds. There endured

¦" 'y*-—

Dickson Sound

chap, xix AT ADVENT POINT 257
within me a keen desire to continue the exploration of the in
terior of Spitsbergen, but in such unpropitious weather what
could we hope to accomplish ? We might indeed cover
some more ground, but with clouds so low we should see
little, and survey work would be most unsatisfactory. More
over, the only piece of country to which the ponies could be
taken was obviously altogether similar to what we had already
mapped and studied. If we could have carried them across
the fjord, or if they could have gone on the ice-sheet, it would
have been different, but our limitations were precise.
Against this was a great temptation. We were actually
on the spot in a probably unique year — the only year for
half a century in which the ice-pack had withdrawn so far
north. Ought we not to sacrifice everything and make
the most of what might be a great chance ? If we could
do nothing more, we could at all events make ourselves
acquainted with the character of the coast scenery, whereof
only the vaguest descriptions exist. We had heard of fine
mountains by Hinloopen Strait, and of others down Wijde
Bay. What were they like ? We knew enough of the interior
now to be able to interpret inland views in a manner
beyond the power of previous voyagers. Thus we could
not fail to learn facts of value. Besides, there was the wide
area of possibility stretching broad and far before the eyes
of hope and imagination. The name of Gillis Land was
spoken. It was enough.
I hailed Bottolfsen, ice-master of the Expres, and found
him willing to entertain my proposal to hire his little boat
for a fortnight or so, but he would not be free till he had
taken some of the Lofoten's passengers to see Andree,
and brought them back — the work of two days. Then he
would be at our service if the Lofoten or the Virgo would
sell us coals, and provided his colleague the skipper was
willing to undertake the engagement. I interviewed the
R

258 SPITSBERGEN chap xix
skipper and the bargain was struck. The Lofoten promised
to leave coals, and I returned to camp. Joy and gladness
reigned there at the tidings I brought. New scenes ahead,
new experiences, a wider world, no ponies to drive, no bogs
to wade, no sledges to lift over obstacles, no more daily
packing and unpacking, pitching and striking, but a tight little
boat all to ourselves and the wide unknowable north ahead.
At the worst we should see the historic sites of the whale-
fishery — the Seven Icebergs, Amsterdam Island, the Norways,
Cloven Cliff, the north coast, Wijde Bay, Hinloopen Strait,
North-east Land, perhaps, even the Seven Islands, and then
— who could say ? Oh wondrous world of the unknown,
strange and phantasmal like death itself, hail to thee !
Thither, oh thither will we, to win thee to ourselves ! There
glowed a light in every eye, a new sprightliness animated
every limb. Gaily we sat down to supper in our flapping
tent, and cared no more for winds or weather, save as they
affected the new prospects so suddenly and attractively
opening before us.
With such ideas to occupy our minds the hours flew
by. A new process of crystallisation was set up in the
baggage, whose parts no longer assembled themselves about
sledges and row-boat, but took quite different combinations.
Baron de Geer and his companion now returned to Advent
Bay from hard work at Cape Boheman, and we had pleasant
visits from them — visits to us most profitable also, for I was
able to acquire a great deal of information from De Geer
about former Swedish expeditions in these regions. New
plans involved a mass of correspondence, a big mail for
Hammerfest, not completed in a moment. Thus the busy
hours went whizzing by, and always the cold wind blew,
and the cloud-blanket hung low overhead, hiding the hills,
and making survey work impossible, so that there were no
regrets on that score.

chap, xix AT ADVENT POINT 259
When the die was thrown, Bergen cast a shoe. Wonder
ful that none had been cast sooner ! Now it was a matter
of no importance, but how troublesome it might have been
had it happened on the way to Coles Bay. As events proved,
the Coles Bay expedition would have been valueless, for
weather continued so bad, and clouds so low, that nothing
but a route survey could have been made. The clouds some
times lifted a little for an hour, and showed the hills all
white with deeper new snow than we had before seen, but
they only settled down lower and thicker than before, till
fog even enveloped the tents, and snow fell upon us. The
changeful wind blew this way and that, always seeking the
entrance of the tents, pitch them how we might. It was a
gruesome time in camp.
Gregory, Garwood, and Ted took advantage of the Expres's
preliminary trip to Danes Island, to be carried by her as
far as Green Harbour, there to collect fossil-plants till we
came for them on the northward way.
There was a singular lack of the sense of the passage
of time as the days went by in camp, for it was impossible
to do anything methodically. Evil weather made packing
an intermittent occupation, whilst it was too chilly to adhere
long to any sedentary work. Nothing was to be accom
plished in the neighbouring hills amid the all-obliterating
fog. Trevor-Battye and I drifted asunder in the matter of
sleep till we came to playing Box and Cox, the dinner of each
being the other's breakfast. Efforts to come round together
were hopelessly unsuccessful. Long talks with Pedersen, in
our mixed common language, were perhaps the most interest
ing events of these featureless days, for he is a mine of in
accurate Spitsbergen traditions, which he only divulges under
close cross-examination.
One day he refused tea, saying that it was a Russian
drink ; Norwegians, he said, drink coffee. He constantly

260 SPITSBERGEN chap, xix
opposed Norway to Russia, a reminiscence, as we thought,
of the old hunters' rivalry in these parts. We asked about
the Russian trappers. He said none had ever been here
in his time. He thought the last came about fifty years
ago. He had never heard of Starashchin by name, but
knew about a certain Isak, who, with his family, lived summer
and winter for thirty-six years on Bell Sound, having camps
both on the north and south shores. Other Russian en
campments he knew of near Cape Starashchin (where the
lake is called Russian Lake, and the river Russian River),
at Green Harbour by the west side of the entrance, at Coal
Haven in King's Bay, at Red Bay, at Liefde Bay on the
west side (a big camp), on the Ryss Islands and Hyperite
Island in Hinloopen Strait, at Cape Roos, on the Russian
Islands in Deevie Bay of Edge Land, at Whales Head in
Wybe Jans Water, and on the Dun Islands and neighbour
ing coast near Horn Sound.
This information was slowly extracted by help of the
chart. There were many digressions, and it was hard to
keep the good man's attention to the point. One digression
was caused by his own name. He calls himself Carl Wil-
lumsen Petersen, but we happened to notice " B. Pedersen "
embroidered on his socks. "So that's your name, is it?"
we asked. " Yes, that's my name." " Pedersen ? " " No !
Petersen with a ' t! " " What does B stand for ? " " My
Christian name." " Then your name is B. Pedersen ? " " My
name is Carl Willumsen Petersen." " Then who is B.
Pedersen?" "I don't understand." "Were those socks
made for you ? " " Yes ! that's why my name is marked
on them." We gave it up, and returned to the Russians.
On the morning of August 2, the Erling Jarl, a well-
appointed steamer with fifty-two tourists of various nation
alities, Germans predominating, cast anchor off the point.
She was run by Captain Bade, an old Arctic hand, and the

chap, xix AT ADVENT POINT 261
inventor of Spitsbergen as a tourist resort. This year, as
already mentioned, her passengers had had the rare good
luck to be carried to lat. 8i° 40', without the smallest risk
or discomfort. They waited some time at Danes Island,
hoping to see Andr6e go up, and they visited Liefde Bay.
They were now to spend three days in Ice Fjord, and then
go south to see the eclipse of the sun from Vadso. Of course
the shore at once became animated with clean and well-
dressed people, one of whom came to call, bringing an
introduction to Gregory. We entertained him to an ill-
cooked feast, I fear. I visited Captain Bade, and heard from
his lips the thrilling tale of his experiences on the German
Arctic expedition of 1869-70. The ship to which he be
longed was crushed in the ice off Greenland, and the crew
took to an ice-floe and lived for 237 days on it, drifting
down the coast. They built a hut on the floe, but the
ice broke across beneath it, so that they lost a great part
of their provisions and other supplies. They were reduced
to direst extremities and shortest of short commons. At
last they were able to take to their boats ; they rowed round
Cape Farewell, found a Danish ship, and were brought by
her to Copenhagen, arriving in Europe the very day that
news was received of the battle of Sedan.
Captain Bade was full of interest in our doings and of
advice for the future. He blew rather cold on our plans,
and prophesied that the ice would now come rapidly down
on the north coast, and that we should find it difficult to
reach the Seven Islands. The best time had passed. A
strong north wind was blowing, and we must be infinitely
cautious. " When the ice comes," he said, " it comes with an
incredible speed. Remember, on our ice-floe off Greenland,
we once drifted through two degrees of latitude in twenty-
four hours. The sea is clear to-day, to-morrow it is all ice.
Don't venture in an iron boat down Hinloopen Strait.

262 SPITSBERGEN chap, xix
It is a death-trap. You will probably find it closed at the
south end, and when you turn back the ice has come down
and corked it at the north. You are shut in for good. It
is now August, and the ice must be coming down."
Some of the tourists borrowed the ponies and held
a gymkana. Then there was a dance at the inn, kept up to
an early hour. After it, the company marched down in
military order, with a fiddle and a guitar at their head, and
paid our camp a visit. There was cheering and photograph
ing by the pale grey light. A few hours later the ship steamed
off for Sassen Bay in the continuing drizzle, carrying the
De Geer party with it to map the end of Post Glacier for
comparison with previous records of its form. Left alone,
we continued labouring at the baggage in intervals between
rain and snow. The ponies, and what was left of their hay
and oats, were to be sent back by the next Lofoten to Tromso
for sale. All baggage not further required was to go with
them, for the little Expres had room for us only at a tight
pinch, and no room at all for aught else save coals. Thus
everything had to be sorted, and boxes and bales filled and
nailed or sewn up, each as completed being piled on one
of two heaps according to its destination.
During this process of packing at the end of a journey,
mistakes in equipment become emphatically apparent. From
day to day on the route one learns what things needful
have been forgotten. At the end one discovers what super
fluities have been brought, and still more, what useful things,
duly brought, have never been used, because they were not
in the right place at the right time. Our chief superfluities
were in pony food, unnecessary garments, and snow-shoe
apparatus. Spitsbergen, though it affords little food for man,
is generous to beasts. We had six trusses of hay and as
many sacks of oats that were never required. Snow shoes
were too bulky to be carried inland on the sledges. The

chap, xix AT ADVENT POINT 263
only way to attack inland ice in Spitsbergen is to climb on
to the foot of some glacier that comes down to the sea, and
go right up it dragging sledges. For this work ponies are
useless, as they do little more than drag their own food for
a few days.
We were also over-equipped in the matter of warm
clothing. Every one whose advice we took was accustomed
to regard all Arctic lands from the seaman's point of view.
We never really suffered from cold inland, as we did on
the Raftsund coming up. Ordinary warm winter clothes are
all you need in Spitsbergen. Bulky fur things cannot be
carried over bogs and stony areas. This fur apparatus was
therefore never unpacked. Even our reindeer-skin sleep
ing-bags were a mistake, though a comfortable one ; they
were too big and heavy. Eider-down bags are the things
for inland travel. Our tents, though small, should have been
as much smaller as it is possible to make them, with canvas-
flooring instead of mackintosh, and made to close far more
tightly than English tent-makers dream of, but the stout
canvas employed for them was good and none too thick.
Tents for Spitsbergen must be absolutely waterproof. Each
man should have a waterproof sheet in which to wrap his
bundle. These sheets suffice for flooring.
I take it that the principle of all travellers' equipment
is this : The heavy baggage and base camp should be
supplied in proper proportions with everything needed for
the journey. These things should be packed with intelligence
and thoroughly mixed. There should be no boxes full of
one kind of thing. Every piece of baggage should contain
a well-assorted combination, especially in the case of pro
visions. Secondly, the light camp should be an epitome
of the base camp. It is useless to have a box full of rubber-
bands, for instance, at the base, when the single one you
need inland is not forthcoming ; and so with medicines.

264 SPITSBERGEN chap, xix
tools, and stores of all sorts. Such matters cannot be
-arranged in a hurry. They need to be thought out leisurely
at home before the main packing is put in hand. Nothing
should ever be received packed from the maker. All goods
should be received at home, separate, so that they can be
properly distributed from the outset. Of course a most
complete index of the contents of every package should be
kept, and this in the case, not only of the main baggage,
but also of the light camp-equipment. Infinite time may be
saved in camp by ability to lay hands at the moment on
"the moment's need. No agent or mercantile firm can be
trusted with this work. The traveller must do it himself.
Finally, on the march, a traveller's pockets or satchel, or,
at the least, a satchel carried for him by a porter always
at hand, should contain an epitome of the contents of the
light camp. There should always be some food accessible,
always a simple tool or two, always a bit of string, a
rubber-band, a note-book, perhaps (if you are going with
sledges) a bit of wire, a nail, a screw, and the like. Zur-
briggen was the best companion I ever knew in this respect.
His pockets responded to every emergency. Mine, alas !
seldom do. If an intending traveller keeps these principles
in mind he will find the task of equipment simplified, and
his work of preparation rendered more serious ; but every
minute spent in careful preparation at home, is an hour
saved to the explorer at a time when hours may be of
incalculable value.

WALDEN ISLAND

CHAPTER XX

ADVENT BAY TO THE SEVEN ISLANDS

AT four A.M. on August 5, we steamed away, on board
/Y the little Expres, for new lands and experiences of a
new order. Melancholy indeed was the land we left behind,
with its bleak purple shores, sloping up to hills all white
with new-fallen snow from a level of about 500 feet, and
roofed with cloud. Bleared gleams of misty sunlight cast
an added pallor on patches of the view. We thought the
weather showed a tendency to clear, one of the many hopes,
destined to disappointment, wherewith all our remaining
time in these waters was filled. The Expres steamed along
by the southern shore of the fjord, where the steep buttressed
fronts of the hills were stained in patches on their sloping
laps, as by upset paint-pots of vivid green — mossy areas
varnished with wet. Running for the Fastningen Rock at
the mouth of Green Harbour, where Gregory, Garwood, and
Ted were collecting fossils, we passed the Orient Company's
steamer Garonne, on its way to Advent Bay, with friends on
board whom we were sorry to miss.
The wind howled, and rain drove in our faces as we
265

266 SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
came to near Green Harbour Camp, and blew the whistle.
The screaming thing bored the drums of our ears, but such
was the turmoil of the air, that it was inaudible ten minutes'
row to windward, where the tent was pitched behind a rock.
Only the chance that Garwood was on a look-out revealed
our presence. By noon all were on board, tightly packed
into the little cabin. It was of a truncated V-shape, ten feet
wide at its broadest. Down the midst was a passage cluttered
up by a stove, a table, and a washstand. On either side was
a narrow bench, and then a shelf on a higher level. A
man might lie on this shelf, but he could not turn over,
for the ceiling was too close down. Only in an area of
about two square yards at the foot of the companion would
there have been room to stand erect, but that too was filled
with baggage. Everywhere else you bumped your head,
even when sitting. We were fairly bruised all over, after
a week's knocking about in such narrow and angular quarters.
The five of us packed in somehow with all our baggage and
bags. Two lay on each narrow bench with heads propped
up against the ends, and legs like overthrust strata. The
fifth was either on the floor or on a shelf. The tents were
roomy palaces compared with this cabin.
In such relative discomfort we headed for the sea, and
were glad ; for there was a sense of freedom now that bogs
and ponies were well left behind, and new scenes were at
hand. Once Dead Man's Cape was rounded a new world
would open, and all the known hills be wrapped away.
Round we went in the tumbling sea. The west front of
Spitsbergen began to unroll before us, the sea front of the
long mass of hard arch?ean rocks, which keeps the rotten
interior of the island from being swept away by the inroading
ocean. A series of splintered ridges, striking inland, here
abut upon the sea. Their other ends are presented towards
Advent Bay. Broad glaciers flow lazily down between them

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 267
to either shore. One glacier ends just north of the Dead
Man. Farther up comes a second and wider glacier, with
a great northern tributary. The wide crescent front of the
second glacier loomed out of fog, its edge broken into blue-
faced seracs. The ice-cliff, doubtless ioo feet high, produced
no impression of altitude, but only of width, and the glaciers
of flatness and extension, a whole world removed from the
appearance of Alpine glaciers. A mountain mass followed,
unbroken by big glaciers as far as St. John's Bay. Low rain-
clouds hung above the mist, and rain-besoms swept across
in front. The very universe seemed melting away.
We were now hurrying up the narrow sound, named
Keerwyk, dividing Prince Charles's Foreland (named after
Charles, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Charles I.) from
Spitsbergen. The Foreland is a submerged mountain range
with submarine banks of debris piled about its foot. The
southern extremity, Saddle Point, seems to have been an
island at the time of the discovery, but is now connected with
the rest by a low flat, a few feet above sea level. Unluckily
all the mountains of the Foreland, some of the finest and
loftiest in Spitsbergen, were buried in cloud. We could only
see the mouths of gloomy valleys, and the bases of massive
buttresses, solemn rock-forms dignified in their mystery of
cloud-envelopment. Our little boat, plunging into the short
seas, or leaping on to them, seemed dancing with life ; she
had a rollicking way with her, and shook off the water from
her back like a duck. Our pace was not more than eight
knots, but we had a greater sense of swift movement than
I ever before experienced at sea ; water, air, and boat all
seemed to be flying along. It was strange how little float
ing ice we met, though in close proximity to so many
glaciers ending in the sea. It would seem that a wide
serac'd glacier front should be fringed with fallen ice, but
it was not so. The channel grew narrower ; glaciers came

268 SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
down to the water on both sides, and fog fell upon the sea.
We plunged into mere grey nothingness, and so passed the
narrowest and very shallow part of the strait. A lift of the
curtain displayed purple English Bay, with a steepish little
glacier tumbling into it from the north. The heavy grey
clouds seemed to walk on the sea, on columnar limbs of
falling snow, thick, grey, and heavy, like the clouds. The
Sound ends between the bold head of Fair Foreland (Vogel-
hoek) and the low spit named Quade Hook, where King's
and Cross Bays open. They are divided by a fine mountain
mass, dark and bold, with many valley-laps in it. Each
bay enclosed a separate storm, so that the promontories
only could be descried.
On we went, almost due north, now in the open sea,
and once more in fog so thick that the land was seldom
visible. Only three of the so-called Seven Icebergs were
seen. They are low, wide, gently-sloping glaciers of the
normal type, some pushing crescent-fronted ice-cliffs into
the sea, others with pudding-ends stopping short of the
waters on a ddbris flat. Thin splintered ridges divide one
glacier from another, and all, I believe, drain the inland
ice-sheet lying between the coast and Liefde Bay. Of the
nature of this ice-sheet nothing is known. Looking up
Cross Bay, we afterwards learned that deep valleys, separated
by rugged ranges, penetrate far inland to the north. They
are the orographical continuation of the high land east of
Dutch Bay. It may be that these mountains form a back
bone dividing the ice into two separate sheets. Large
glaciers in Spitsbergen do not necessarily imply the exist
ence of large, or indeed of any, neves. An Alpine traveller
finds the realisation of this fact difficult. Seven such snouts
in the Alps would prove the existence of a feeding snow
field as large as the whole Bernese Oberland. In Spits
bergen nothing of the kind need be postulated.

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS

269

Of Magdalen Bay, called the fairest jewel of Arctic scenery,
only the ghost loomed forth, robed in white and crowned
with needle-pointed splinters of aspiring rock. Had it
been more plainly discovered, we should not have greatly
cared, for the tumbling of the boat and the jarring of the
screw had by this time wrought weariness in all. We were

ONE OF THE SEVEN ICEBERGS.

counting the hours to a respite in smooth water. Presently,
round a corner, came the narrow and impressive South
Gat — once scene of the great whale fishery and entrance
to the haven of the Dutch. A sunken rock in the midst
of the way needs careful avoidance, but our skipper had
already made this part of the voyage many times this year
— conveying tourists to see AndreVs balloon. Full steam

270 SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
ahead therefore we went, disturbing countless flocks of little
auks and with infinite fulmars swooping around. Thick fog
and a heavy fall of snow brought us to a halt as soon as we
were in the smooth water of land-locked Dutch Bay, which
is marked on the chart as Smeerenburg, though that name
properly belonged not to the haven itself but to the old
Dutch whalers' settlement on the low east spit of Amsterdam
Island. The true Smeerenburg, or Blubbertown, had but a,
brief period of prosperity, and has long been in ruins.
The west side of Smeerenburg Bay is formed by Amster
dam and Danes Islands. They are separated by Danes Gat,
whilst South Gat divides Danes Island from Spitsbergen.
Feeling our way through the fog, over water leaden-smooth,
we came at length to the little enclosed bay in the south
side of Danes Gat, where Andree's ship Virgo was anchored,
close by the balloon-house, on the north shore of Danes
Island, at the point where once stood the " Cookery of
Harlingen." Here we too cast anchor, for the Expres needed
coal, and we had good hope that the Virgo's captain would
kindly supply us from his superfluity. Crossing in the
dingey to call on Herr Andree, we were struck by the intense
greenness of the water, rendered all the more emphatic by
contrast with a brilliant yellow stain on the rocks by the
shore, the result of recent gas-manufacture for the balloon.
Assuredly few places in the world can be more utterly
forlorn than this rock-bound bay, frowned upon by bare
hills, about whose bases angular debris are deeply piled,
nothing in sight but barren islands and splintered glaciers,
"with black air accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom."
Snow lay deep down to the very margin of the sea, and
a thick snowfall was at that moment taking place. The
north winds only "bursting their brazen dungeon, armed
with ice, and snow, and hail, and stormy gust, and flaw,"
avail to fall direct upon this enclosed spot. But draughts

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 271
at all times eddy round and round, and cause the snow-
flakes to dance together in columns like restless ghosts.
Here it was that Mr. Arnold Pike built a small wooden
house, wherein he passed a winter far from the haunts of
men. The house was being utilised by the Swedes, who
set up their strangely civilised-looking gas apparatus close
alongside. Studley, after leaving us at Advent Bay, spent a
whole month in Pike's House, waiting to see the balloon
go up. Walkey immortalised him in a monumental outline
on the door — an unmistakable likeness !
Mr. J. Stadling of Stockholm, our companion on the
Raftsund, extended a warm greeting to us on the Virgo, and
conveyed Herr Andree's invitation to go over the balloon
house with him. A few strokes took the boat to the little
landing-stage, where Herr Andrde and the two intended
companions of his proposed aerial flight joined us. We
were shown how the gas was made, and the long silk
pipe meandering amongst the stones to convey it into the
balloon. The great distended sphere filled the roofless
wooden house and bulged out above. Like all balloons,
when seen near at hand, it appeared surprisingly large. It
is related of a shy curate, who had sat in absolute silence
throughout a dinner at the squire's house, that with the
coming of dessert he suddenly remarked, a propos of nothing,
"The cuckoo is a larger bird than you'd suppose." The
same general statement I maintain to be true of balloons.
They are all larger than you would suppose. There is here
no need to describe Andrew's balloon. It has been described
often enough. Interesting as it was to me, with all its com
pact contrivances, it was far less interesting than Andr6e
himself. No one could see him and not be struck by the evident
force and capacity of the man. In his presence, the idea
that any wavering of intention found place in his mind was

272

SPITSBERGEN

CHAP. XX

inconceivable. Pestered, as he had been for weeks, by in
quisitive visitors, he seemed on the defensive, and suspicious
of criticism in every question. He had been told that his
scheme was in every respect impracticable. "They said I
could not set up and inflate my balloon in this place. I have
set it up and inflated it. They said it would not hold the

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HERR ANDREE'S BALLOON HOUSE.

gas for a sufficient length of time without leakage. It has
now been inflated for ten days or more, and it does not leak.
There were two little needle-point holes only, and those we
easily mended. We have considered everything and provided
against every accident, and now we are certain that, whenever
the right wind blows, we can start without a hitch. Un
fortunately since July 15 (this was August 6), there has been

no south wind.

It is not enough for me that the wind should

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 273
be from the right quarter. I must have a chance of decent
weather, so that we may be able to see something. Now it
is getting late. The Virgo is not insured after August 20, so
that, unless a good wind sets in soon, we must pack up and
return to Sweden. It would have been better if we had
been able to come up here earlier in the year, but we could
not, for the balloon was not made in time. Our work, how
ever, has not been wasted. The experience we have gained
will be valuable, when we come back again next year, as I
hope to do. We shall come earlier, and shall be able to get
the balloon ready quicker. There is always plenty of south
wind early in the season. Three days of a moderate wind,
blowing approximately from the south, is all we need. After
that the wind may blow how it pleases, it cannot help taking
us towards some of the land that encircles the polar ocean.
We can remain afloat for three weeks, and in that time,
with any luck, we ought to be carried down to some habit
able country."
Herr Andr6e then invited me to climb to the top of
the balloon, and see how the snow that was falling heavily
was shed off the dome. The ascent was made by a kind
of zigzag wooden staircase, forming a buttress to the balloon
house. There was little in the nature of banister, and
the space between the steps was open. The steps were
covered with fresh snow, on which my rubber boots slipped
about. I never felt less secure in my life. A slip at the
top would have launched us straight into the air, a hundred
feet above the ground.
The Virgo's captain placed five days' coal at the disposal
of the Expres. We took it on board in barrels, and piled
them along the narrow gangways, forming all the deck
there was to the little boat. The weather was thick as ever
when the anchor was raised, but this is a land that bad
weather dignifies and adorns The strong black ancient

274 SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
rock, broken into points and draped with whitest snow
mantles, seemed able to defy alike raging sea and splitting
frost. The mountains all around were of the same bold
type, but at the foot of those that form Amsterdam Island
is a wide low spit of ground jutting out into the bay, and
carrying the ruins and graves of what was Smeerenburg.
This shore was well adapted for drawing up the carcasses
of whales, killed either in the bay itself or in the neigh
bouring seas. Here the blubber was cut from them and
boiled down in one of the "tents," or factories, whose very
foundations have long disappeared.
A heavy mist lay low down, and cast leaden shadows upon
the smooth water. Only the bases of the hills could be
seen. On these the imagination was free to pile whatever
mighty towers it pleased. It was easy to fill the scene with
high-pooped Dutchmen riding at anchor, whilst the shore
was thronged with busy crowds. For many thousands of
men and women, in the palmy days of the whale fishery in
the seventeenth century, annually resorted here to catch
the fish or handle the produce of the fishery. Large glacier
fronts protrude into the sea on the east coast of the bay.
A blaze of white light, a true ice -blink, gleamed in the
mist over the level glacier surface that comes down with
almost imperceptible slope from the unexplored inland ice.
All around was grey — grey water, grey sky, grey rocks —
save for faint blue breaks in the glacier fronts, and one
incredibly deep-blue castle of stranded ice, whose colour,
like a rich note of music, seemed to throb in and through
the soft and tender harmony of grey.
Our first need was to steam due north and find the ice
pack. The last news we had of it was, that about July 28
its south margin was in lat. 81" 40' N. But a strong north
wind had been blowing continuously ever since, and there
was unfortunately little doubt that the ice had by now

DRIFT ICE OFF SPITSBERGEN.

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 275
come much farther south. Out therefore into the mist and
the heaving sea we hastened, past Foul Point and Vogelsang.
Of this island, as well as of Cloven Cliff and the Norways,
we had a clear view. They resemble, in structure and
colouring, the other shores and islands of the neighbourhood.
It was their historic interest that affected me. How many
Arctic explorers have sighted them — Phipps (with young
Nelson), Scoresby, Franklin, Parry, Nordenskjold, Leigh
Smith, Lamont — oftener outposts of disappointment than of
surprise ! For in many years the ice-pack comes down to
these islands and remains fixed against them week after
week. How many skippers have in their turn climbed Cloven
Cliff, and gazed towards north and east, only to find ice
everywhere and no possible " lead " ! Thus far, at any rate,
the fortune of the year favoured us ; there was not a frag
ment of floating ice in sight.
In five hours' time, however, we ran into it, in latitude
80° 13', and turned eastward along its edge, which forced
us somewhat south at first, then bent away northward, so
that after six hours' running we were in latitude 80° 28',
almost north of Verlegen Hook. Here the edge of the
pack turned sharply to the south, and compelled a
change of course. We ran along it for another hour or
more, and then came to drift ice, broken up and scattered
over the surface of th£ sea as far as Verlegen Hook itself.
By twisting about, a way through was found into open
water again, at the mouth of Hinloopen Strait,j but the
pack was not far off, and was unmistakably coming down
on Verlegen Hook.
The broken ice-sheet that fills the Polar Sea continually
drifts from the north-east on to Spitsbergen. Divided into
two parts by North-East-Land, it opens like two jaws, whereof
the north usually closes upon Verlegen Hook, the south
upon Wiche Land, where, subdividing, a branch goes to

276 SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
plug the south entrance of Hinloopen Strait, whilst the other
jams up against Edge Land. Thus Verlegen Hook to the
north, and the Ryk Yse Islands off Edge Land to the
south, are frequently the limits beyond which vessels cannot
pass. It seemed to be a mere question of hours before
Verlegen Hook would be infested. The floating ice was
already accumulating against the coast, and soon the gap
separating the pack from the land would be filled.
Hereupon a difference of opinion arose on board. The
skipper was for turning back. He said it was folly to go
forward. The ice was coming down and we should be cut
off. The Expres is an iron boat incapable of resisting the
smallest blow from ice in water at freezing temperature.
It would be difficult to avoid touching some of the many
ice-blocks that dotted the sea in all directions. He wanted
neither to lose his ship nor his life. The ice-master,
Bottolfsen, on the other hand, was willing to go on.
Twenty-four hours, he judged, would elapse before the ice
could close on Verlegen Hook, and in twenty-four hours
we might run to the Seven Islands, and see how the pack
lay in that direction. Perhaps there might be open water,
and we might get round North-East-Land. The matter was
referred to me. I said "Go on," and on we went, in and
out amongst the floating ice, pieces of all sizes, — small
blocks we might have hauled on board, and flat floes big
enough for a cricket match. Gradually the open water
became larger, and in an hour or so we emerged into clear
sea once more, and found the edge of the fast ice trending
north, fringed by lines of large loose masses with tilted
tables and blue mounds of crushed floes. A sail was seen
ahead. It proved to be the stout-looking, new-built walrus-
sloop, Lykkenprove of Tromso. We came to and hailed her.
The warmly-clad crew and cheery captain assembled on
deck. When our engines stopped, and we lay still on the

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 277
now calm water, the silence of the great deep was almost
oppressive. Through it the voices of Bottolfsen and the
sloop's skipper rang, as might those of challenging heroes
beneath the walls of listening Troy. We learned that, a fort
night before, the sloop had been hunting round the NE.
corner of North-East-Land. Then the ice came down, and
they were forced to run before it. Four days ago they
passed the Seven Islands but little in advance of the ice,
which by now had certainly reached them. Their catch
had been poor. They had killed one bear, and filled ninety
barrels with blubber— that was all.
A faint breeze carried them slowly westward, whilst we
steamed away north-east near the edge of the pack. The
coast of North-East-Land lay about ten miles off on our
starboard hand, bleak, desolate, and cloud-capped, in type
altogether similar to the north coast of Spitsbergen, and
the islands near Smeerenburg. Deep new-fallen snow lay
thick on the old snow, down to the sea's margin, only cliffs
and steep rocks stood out black from the white mantle.
The existence of the great inland ice-sheet, by which this
island is wholly enveloped, was here and there suggested
through breaks in the clouds. Milton, who owed so much
of his knowledge of strange lands to study of Purchas His
Pilgrims, might have had North-East-Land in mind when
he wrote : —
" Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms,
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile ; all else deep snow and ice.
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damieta and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk ; the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.

27B SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
A universe of death, which God by curse,
Created evil, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived,
Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimasras dire.''
A few hours later the remote Seven Islands appeared
ahead, matching in form the bold bluff of North Cape
Island's northern front.
We did not run directly for the islands, but headed to
pass them to the west, hoping to steam round and find
again the edge of the pack, which had bent away and left
open sea all about us. If the north coast of Spitsbergen
had seemed bleak, these islands, as we neared them, seemed
yet bleaker, yet more desolate and aloof from man. First
came Walden, an arete - crested mound of hardest rock,
defying the inroads of the sea. Beyond it we saw, as one
mass, the larger islands of Parry, Phipps, and Martens — all
cliff-sided, bare, and lonely. The reader will find it hard
to share the emotions evoked by the sight of these islands
in the mind of one to whom, by much reading of books
of Arctic travel, they had long become, if inaccessible and
remote, yet definite realities, associated with the doings, the
struggles, and the disappointments of great explorers, memor
able in the annals of daring and human achievement. There
they lay silent, cold, and still, under their pall of cloud
and snow, with the gloom of the north enshrouding them.
Hardly a bird skimmed the surface of the forsaken sea,
wherein only ice-blocks floated. To the north-west, beyond
the three larger islands, a few lonely rocks stood forth,
joining clouds and sea — the two Table Islands and Ross
Island — last outposts of land towards the Polar Ocean, which,
a few miles farther, sinks to a depth of 1370 fathoms, as
Nordenskjold discovered.

ROCKS OF WALDEN ISLAND.

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 279
We were destined not to reach the Table Islands ; on
approaching, we found them enveloped in the pack. The
report of the Lykkenprove was true. We were hopelessly
cut off from the east. The time had passed in which it
would have been possible to advance far towards Giles
Land. Accordingly, after again coming as close to the
pack as we dared, in lat. 8o° 39', our greatest northing, the
boat was put about, and headed for Walden, through a sea
clear of ice, and of an incredible peacock-blue colour. This
was the island on which the Wellman expedition took refuge,
when their steamer, the Ragnvald Jarl, was nipped in the
ice and destroyed close to its shore on May 28, 1894.
Bottolfsen had been ice-master to Mr. Wellman, and could
tell many details about the adventures of the ill-fated ex
pedition. We passed round the north promontory, and came to,
off a bay in the east shore. The sea behind the island
being very calm, it was possible to land, so we lowered the
boats and rowed ashore, glad to feel solid rock beneath
our feet. Solid, indeed, are the red and grey rocks of
Walden, foundation stones of the earth's first crust.1 Yet,
hard though they be, the violence of Arctic weather avails
to crumble their surface into a kind of rough sand, which
can readily be scraped off by the boot. There is no soil
on the island, save in narrow gullies and chinks protected
from wind. In such places snow-beds also permanently
linger. The shore is eaten away into little coves, intricately
bent. The surface of the rock is scored into deep undula
tions of ridge and gully, and every yard of progress involves
a scramble. We made our way to the ruined framework of the Well-
1 Dr. Gregory and Mr. Garwood will describe the geology of the island in
another book.

280 SPITSBERGEN chap, xx
man hut, drawn by the resistless attraction of a human
interest. Footprints in a steep gully piled with sand showed
the way to it. They had been preserved beneath a covering
of snow. Truth to tell, there was little enough to see — a
mere framework of beams, the wreck of sleeping-bunks,
floors, and doorways, a heap of coal, piles of withered-
up potatoes and peas, foul remnants of old clothes, empty
cartridges, a packet of photograph developer, and such like
rubbish. It was interesting to hear Bottolfsen's reminis
cences. " When we opened the door one morning there was
a big bear standing close to it, just where you are now. He
seemed to be waiting for some one to come out. I caught
sight of him in time and called to the skipper to look out.
I only stopped him just in time, for the bear would have been
on him in a moment. We shot the bear. Perhaps this
may have been his skull, though I don't think so — it is not
large enough."
Strolling about, looking at the rubbish, I came upon what
looked like a candle-end wrapped in paper. It seemed too
hard for a candle, and I threw it violently on the rock at my
feet, to see if it would break, for it was hard frozen. A yard
or two farther on was a pile of similar objects. "What are
these?" I asked. "Oh," said Bottolfsen, "those are part of
the case of dynamite ! " I did not try to break any more
of them. The back of the island's ridge afforded a fine view over
sea and land. Clouds had lifted somewhat, and the larger
islands more amply displayed the lonely grandeur of their
weather-beaten, snow-draped flanks. Even nearer at hand to
the south were the crags of North-East-Land's North Cape,
with the Castrens Islands by it, whilst far to the east Cape
Wrede and Cape Platen lifted their bold fronts beneath the
cold, white blink that showed where the fast ice bound the

RUINS OF THE WELLMAN HUT ON WALDEN ISLAND.

chap, xx SEVEN ISLANDS 281
sea. It was a memorable view. We gazed at it, as men
looking upon a world they will never see again. The little
Expres lay still upon the calm water in the island's lee. She
seemed impatient to be off, fearing the adventure of the ice,
which was coming down with stealthy drift, nearer and
nearer every hour.

•¦•¦>
I
m

.WICHE LAND.
From a Sketch by A. Trevor-Battye.

CHAPTER XXI
HINLOOPEN STRAIT AND WIJDE BAY
AFTER noon (Aug. 7) the engines were again set going
L with the ship's head to the SW., almost retracing her
course. At first there was some movement of waves, but
when, in about five hours' running, the loose ice was entered,
the surface of the water became deathly calm. Off Verlegen
Hook the question of whitherward was again mooted. The
skipper was for running west, beyond the ice-trap. We
preferred any alternative to that. Hinloopen Strait opened
invitingly close at hand. Why not run down it, and attempt
to circumnavigate Spitsbergen — a feat never accomplished
by travellers. If a way was open to the south, it would not
matter whether Verlegen Hook were blocked or not. The
same north wind that was bringing the pack down on it, was
possibly driving the ice away from Olga Strait. Of course,
we might find the south entrance to the strait blocked, and
be driven to return, and then find ourselves cut off at
Verlegen Hook. Walrus sloops before now have been thus
circumstanced, and their crews have had to abandon them
and beat a retreat in their boats, not always avoiding tragic
issues. Such possibilities added zest to the enterprise. We
determined to accept the hazard.

NEAR THE MOUTH OF HINLOOPEN STRAIT.

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 283
Round went the rudder and away sped the Expres on a
new track. In an hour's time we had passed the long low
flat of Verlegen Hook and entered the mouth of Hinloopen
Strait. The air became warmer and more soft, under a
thoroughly English winter sky. Rain-clouds travelled over
land and sea, and grey brooms, sweeping along, showed
where snow or rain was falling. They were more common
in bays and over the land than on the sea. One dense
besom swept Treurenburg Bay and hid the point behind
which, in Hecla Cove, Parry left his ship before his memor
able expedition to the north over the ice-pack. East was
North-East-Land ; its shores sometimes low, but always with
a cliff-fronted plateau behind, swelling up to a vast area of
snow that vanished into cloud. Little auks again peopled
the waters in considerable numbers, and went flopping away
from us, beating the surface with their wings ; or dived
hurriedly out of sight. The scene on all sides presented an
effect of breadth and lowness. Even the cliffs looked very
low in contrast with their breadth. White promontories jutted
into the water. White hills stood forth against black clouds,
and dark rocks against white patches of fog ; for the air
was full of vapour and wet, and was mottled light and dark
according to its density. The sea in the straits was per
fectly calm, and the prospect of its so continuing enabled
us to come to our right minds. The cabin was put into
some approximation to order. Sketches were made, guns
cleaned, and slides changed in the cameras. Cooking was
put in hand, and general cheerfulness reigned.
From Hecla Hook to Lomme Bay, the whole coast of
the part of Spitsbergen called New Friesland is formed by
one long glacier front, twenty-three geographical miles in
width. In some places rock beds lift the foot of the ice
above sea level, but for the most part the glacier terminates
in a cliff of ice actually washed by the waves. To describe

284 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
this as a glacier twenty-three miles wide is to give a false
impression. The whole land area between Wijde Bay and
Hinloopen Strait is covered with an ice-sheet, which would
flow on all sides into the sea were it not for the configu
ration of the margin of the land. A range of hills encloses
it on the west, so that only three ice-tongues, as we shall

: " : ._:
EAST SHORE OF WIJDE BAY.
hereafter see, actually reach the waters of Wijde Bay. To
the north, the plateau edge similarly obstructs the ice, and
only permits one outlet, down which it flows into the head
of Treurenburg Bay. On the east side the rock-walls are
fewer, and the ice can flow freely down between the rocks
of Hecla Hook on the north, and the Lomme Bay hills,
and again (not to mention small ice-tongues) south of

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 285
Mount Loven. Keeping pretty close to the ice-cliff we had
a better opportunity of watching the form and behaviour
of a large sheet of inland ice than ever before.
As in the glaciers near Ice Fjord, so here crevasses
were numerous, but all blocked by new snow as soon as
formed. The drainage is thus kept on the surface. Water
flows down channels, which it cuts into deep grooves.
These become arched over by later fallen snow, which
swiftly turns to ice, so that the wet channel of one year
tends to become a dry tunnel the next. The sections of
such dry tunnels, made by the terminal ice-cliff, revealed
blue grottoes of marvellous beauty. More impressive, how
ever, than these, and even than the great fissured cliff itself
with all its azure facets, was the vast, gently curving ice
field, reaching back so far under the heavy grey cloud
canopy, which here and there rested upon it, and inter
rupted its long low sky-line, casting upon its spotless
surface an infinite gradation of the tenderest shadows. The
whole scene was marvellous beyond all power of words ;
most memorable was the gravity of the colouring, the dark-
green sea, the purple rocks, the blue glacier cliff, the near
grey, the remote yellowish snow, and over all the dull
leaden-grey of the clouds, combined into a solemn harmony
of tone over which brooded the great silence of the north.
The view defiled before us as we passed, and made the
enormity of the scale of the ice-phenomena gradually ap
parent to the senses. With slow movement the cloud-roof
kept drifting from the east, very low down, trailing sometimes
a skirt of falling snow, which blotted out everything beneath
it. Gloomy Lomme Bay showed the bulging cliffs streaked
with snow that wall it round and keep back the ice-sheet
except from its head, which a land-locked storm hid from
us. Wide low Wahlenberg Bay on the other side contrasts
with Lomme Bay in character. Its north side is formed

286 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
by sloping ice, whilst along the south are a row of plateau
fronting debris-slopes, like those along the south side of
Ice Fjord. This bay was specially interesting to us, as
being the place where Nordenskjold descended after his
famous traverse of the inland ice of North-East-Land. Here
abouts we met another hunting-sloop, the William Barents.
She stood out, a dark and sharply outlined thing, against
the hazy grey and white background. We hailed her,
but learned nothing from her secretive and suspicious
skipper. Slowly against the powerful tide we forged onward down
the strait, passing the low Foster Islands, and approaching
the archipelago that studs the south Waygat, over against
Cape Torell. The snow again ceased to fall and the clouds
withdrew somewhat aloft, and multiplied into varied forms,
soft and grey. Calm water, in grey and green undulations,
with a line of dark beyond, led to the low glacier fronts of
North-East-Land, beyond which the large ice-sheet delicately
sloped up into tender mist and blanched ice-blink, with a
dark cloud-dragon lying above all. The view broadened
down the low-sided strait. There were black islands in front,
sharply edged, but all else, near or far away, was utterly soft
and vague.
The slow changes and developments of scenery that
matched our movement were to me of infinite fascination.
Each hour brought some new effect, some fresh delight.
The charm lay not in any one view, but in the succession
of slight variations on one theme. But the attempt to
suggest by mere words the aspect of these effects and
mutations, even to a careful reader, without calling upon
him for too sustained an attention, or requiring of his fancy
too large an exercise, seems almost foredoomed to failure.
The attempt, however, must be made, for these scenes
have never before been described, and the chance of be-

KTiHEKO IN OLGA STRAIT.

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 287
holding them, as we did, is so rare that it may be long
before the opportunity occurs again.
We passed between Cape Torell and the low black island
of Walberg. In contrast of form William I. Island appeared
in the south, high and with a round snow top. Its east
bluff is named Thumb Point — a name foolishly common in
these parts, and in this case inapt. Over against Cape Torell,
a big white nameless valley, floored with a glacier flowing
between bluff-fronted plateaus, debouches on a wide name
less bay. This valley would afford a good avenue of approach
to the interior.
Beyond Cape Torell came the wider sea, which was called
Olga Strait, when Wiche's Land was believed to be larger
than it actually is, and the water between it and Spitsbergen
might be thought of as a narrow sea. Now began ex
citement as to the position of the ice-pack. Was the way
open to the south, or was it blocked ? At present there were
but few pieces of floating ice, and those small. Only over
the land on either side was there any ice-blink. Right
and left the broad cold blare of light lay along the lower
heavens, but south and north it faded away into yellow,
proving that for some distance the sea was clear before us.
The low white south coast of North-East-Land trended away
under clouds with the inland ice-sheet drooping down to
it. The coast was fringed with loose ice closely packed
together. Presently larger pieces of floating ice than we
had before seen began to dot the water. They were true
icebergs — small no doubt in comparison with Greenland
icebergs, but much the largest we saw in Spitsbergen waters.
They came from the south-east coast of North-East-Land,
where the ice-sheet ends in the sea along a front over sixty
miles in breadth. Wind, tides, and currents had brought
them round Cape Mohn, and scattered them in our path.
They were of infinitely varied form, broken into towers,

288 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
hollowed into caves, heeled over and fallen together, or
cloven asunder in every direction. Blue tones shimmered
upon them or gathered in their depths into an incredible
richness of colour which the calm sea reflected, and against
which the white beds of snow that lay upon them shone forth
in purest contrast. I stood on the deck, note-book in hand,
keenly alert to every novelty.
" Five A.M. (Aug. 8). We are passing William I. Island,
and the sea is opening out, dead calm, with huge ice-masses
floating upon it. All the men are asleep below. The in
significant Bastion Islands have come into view, and over
them I can see, far away, a low white line above the horizon.
It is the snowy covering of Barents Land. An ice-blink
has come up unpleasantly near the point towards which we
are steering. Seals raise their man-like heads and shoulders
to gaze at us out of the wonderful smooth, grey sea, whose
quality from hour to hour continues with little change. It
is now certain that the ice-pack lies ahead, barring our south
ward way. Only one chance remains — to attempt the passage
of Heley Sound."
This, strait is marked Helis Sound on the chart, and
sometimes Hell Sound — a not inappropriate title, but it
was originally named after its probable discoverer, William
Heley, skipper to the Muscovy Company, and, according
to Purchas, a voluminous poet. Seldom has the Sound been
traversed by ships. Lamont, I believe, was the first to
navigate it, but only in an open boat. At the best of times
the navigation is most dangerous, and generally it is im
possible. The ice-pack, filling the south part of Olga Strait,
formed a cape, against whose point our course would have
carried us. From this cape the edge of the pack trended
away SE. and SW. We bent off down the SW. face, running
toward Unicorn Bay, with the pack on one side and Cape
Weyprecht on the other. For ten miles or so the sea re-

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 289
mained open, then drift ice was encountered, which became
more and more thick until progress was difficult. A wooden
ship might have progressed much farther, nosing her way
between the floes and pressing against them, when necessary,
to open a passage. Such manoeuvres would have sent the
Expres to the bottom in half a minute.
The difficulty of the passage of Heley Sound lies in this,
that the tide ebbs and flows through it, with a speed of from
eight to ten knots, so that the water eddies and boils about
the rocky islands, and through the narrow places of the gut.
For our little boat these would have been difficulties enough,
but when the water was covered with floating masses of ice,
each hundreds of tons in weight, which the current would
have twirled about and furiously banged one against another,
the obstacle became insuperable. At slack water we might
perhaps have run through, even as it was, but we could
not approach the mouth of the straits save after traversing
twenty miles of ice-encumbered sea, down a narrow channel
between land and ice-pack, whilst at any moment the
pack might have set upon the land, and crushed us without
warning. We returned, therefore, to the cape and ran down the
east margin of the pack, closely following its edge and
searching for a lead. But the ice-sheet was solid, and
stretched, practically unbroken, away to the remotest dis
tance. On one side of us was the calm sea with the great
bergs floating in it, on the other the white ice-sheet, broad,
blue-edged, cracked here and there, and sometimes broken
into long high ridges of piled blue and white masses, where
two floes had been driven together and "screwed" their
tortured edges up into a splintered chaos. Snow lay thickly
on the ice-sheet and masked the old ice-heaps ; only the
ridges recently formed preserved the sharpness and colour
of their component fragments. At one place, three walruses

290 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
lay upon the ice, but they were far off and seemed mere
dots of black to the naked eye. We had no time to attempt
a stalk, for now, though sea and air were still, it was evident
that the wind was coming up from the south, and would
probably soon set the pack in motion and plug the entrance
to Hinloopen Strait. Farther east we might still find a south
ward lead, so on we ran, following the pack's edge, which
kept trending more and more to the east. Barents Land
and Edge Land receded and sank ; North-East Land was
all but gone — only a white line of gentlest undulation still
marked the position of the inland ice. The sky was
dark overhead, and the calm water mirrored the gloom,
in which the floating ice-castles seemed to hang suspended ;
but at a short distance they also melted into the general
grey. Now, away to the eastward, a new land rose above the
horizon and riveted our gaze. It was Wiche Land, or
King Karl Islands. Walrus and whale hunters have known
of its existence from early times, but few travellers have
ever beheld its rugged crest, most of them only from high
points of view on Barents and Edge Islands. In 1872 the
crews of three walrus sloops actually landed on one of the
islands and brought home a rude description of it, whilst in
1884 Bottolfsen, likewise in a sloop, sailing from the Ryk
Yse Islands with a fair wind, came to Wiche Land in three
watches, and sailed all round it. Such chances are rare.
Eagerly, therefore, I watched the clear-cut white outline of
snowy hills, buttressed with rock-walls, coming nearer and
growing more clearly defined. Following the pack's edge we
were heading almost directly towards it. We might perhaps
have actually steamed to it through open sea, but still our
main desire was to find a gap in the ice-barrier, and extricate
our boat by passing south before the ice closed in again upon
Hinloopen Strait.

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 291
There was no southward opening. The pack remained
continuous, stretching right away to Cape Walter of Wiche
Land. Only in the sea the loose floes became more frequent
and caused us to make a zigzag track. At last we could
advance no farther. The way was barred across and we
had to stop. It was still dead calm on the water amongst
the floes. Clouds and besoms all around were drifting
away before the south wind, leaving us no choice but to
return as we came and with all speed, for a few hours
of the south wind would suffice to drive the fast ice up
against North-East-Land, and cut us off from all chance
of escape. A few minutes we lay on the still water in the midst of the
silence and the ice, examining with telescopes and photograph
ing Wiche Land, now so clear and tantalisingly nigh. We
could trace the fashion of its architecture, and recognise the
bed of hyperite that crowns its northern cape. To the south
it seemed to slope down to a low white line resting on the
horizon. One more climb to the mast-head in hopeless search
for a lead ; then round goes the helm, the engines throb,
the water boils under our stern, and we are off again for
Verlegen Hook, a straight run of about 125 miles. Would
the ice there permit us to pass, or should we find ourselves
cut off ? That was the question which only the event could
answer. The cold air, pouring over the stern of the boat
and down the companion, banished warmth from the little
cabin. By good luck the wind was coming up strongly from
the south ; a south wind would tend to keep Verlegen Hook
clear. That we were retracing our way had this merit, we
could sleep and lose nothing. Off Cape Torell the sloop
Gottfried of Tromso was hailed. She said that, three days
before, the pack had been fast across Hinloopen Strait at
this point. It opened out suddenly and was already closing
again. Another sloop was seen a few miles away, hunting

292 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
in the ice close under North-East-Land. Both followed us
up the Strait.
A strong current with us and a strong wind behind made
our passage quick. At four A.M. (Aug. 9), I awoke to find
Treurenburg Bay close at hand, and the sea to Verlegen
Hook open, with no ice-blink over it. The water was calm
under the lee of the land and everything was grey, but not
so dark as before, nor was the cloud-roof so low or so heavy.
Otherwise the character of the scenery was the same. There
was no sign that even a partial eclipse of the sun was taking
place ; the normal gloom reigned. Again ice-masses dotted
the steely sea, and an ice-blink shone across the north, where
marshalled storm-squadrons, rolling along like the smoke of
guns, magnified by their complexity the aspect of the cloud-
roof, which here was broken by a "lead" of light, there
dropped a tender veil of grey upon the level sea, or mimicked
the forms of mystic beasts with the flying offspring of an
errant fancy.
We were passing Verlegen Hook without mishap, keeping
as close to the shore as the shallow water would permit, for
now our destination was the secluded Wijde Bay, whose
recesses, rarely ice-free, have seldom been penetrated by
explorers. The faint low line of North-East-Land was being
hidden behind the near and dark low spit of the Hook. The
bolder front of North Spitsbergen was ahead, and close at hand
were the craggy shapes of the mountains ending in Grey
Hook. A cloud-roof rested on them, and they were white to
the base with a heavy covering of new-fallen snow. Fog,
trailing skirts upon the water, crawled out of Wijde Bay and
Hinloopen Strait. A brighter pallor glimmered in the southern
sky. Cold steely gleams came and went in this place and that.
Seals, rising and diving again, made rings upon the calm water.
Hurrying bird-flocks skimmed the surface, guillemots with
fish in their mouths for the young ones at home, little auks,

Fold out

GREY HOOK FROM WIJDE BAY.

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 293
and all the usual company. Now opened Mossel Bay, where
Nordenskjold wintered ; we could distinguish the position of
his house. What a cold dead world it was ! with the strong
white near at hand, the warmer cream-tone farther back, and
the bluish-grey beyond — lovely but undesired, like the beauty
of the grave !
Everything on this little voyage happened too fast.
Events followed one another too quickly. I have to tell in
a chapter a tale that should fill a volume. Time enough,
indeed, there was in which to gather a definite impression
of each scene. Hinloopen Strait, Wiche Land, the Seven
Islands, Olga Strait, Wijde Bay — they are all quite clearly
photographed in my memory — clearly as Zermatt or any
other place in which I have spent months. But between
the pictures were no proper gaps, such as in the rest of
the world night provides. They were unframed, reeled
off on an endless tape. Thus my story suffers. Could
we have halted and slept at Mossel Bay, then gone on
board again and made a new start, the voyage up and
down Wijde Bay would have appeared a thing apart, a
separate experience, not a mere incident in the doings of
a tenfold day.
The striking peculiarities of Wijde Bay are its straight-
ness, depth, and general uniformity of width. As we entered,
the sun for a moment shone, but for a moment only. The
Grey Hook hills were clear, and so heavily encumbered
with new snow, that it was with difficulty if a rock here
and there struggled through in the steepest places. Opposite
are curiously-knubbled hills, of hard gneiss, I believe, rigor
ously glaciated. It was not till Aldert Dirks Bay was passed
that the grand scenery of this noble fjord was really dis
played. Had the vista been clear to the end, on our
entering, as it was on our retreat, we should have received
at this point a grand impression of the glories of the fjord.

294 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
As it was they only came upon us with slowly-accumulating
force, for a cloud bulged down on to the water a few miles
on and blotted out the end. All along the west side stand
a row of fine mountains, mountains increasing in majesty
of form as one advances south. They are penetrated by
numerous valleys, some long and level, others short and
steep, others again dividing into many branches of attractive
topographical complexity. All are lonely ; most have glaciers
plastered on their sides or at their heads, but the floors,
except near Grey Hook, are usually flat and boggy, like
the floor of Advent Vale.
The new snow, lying down to sea-level, only lasted a
little way into the bay. Farther in the snow-line rapidly
rose to about iooo feet above sea-level. The north coast
and its immediate neighbourhood seem to have a much
heavier snow-fall than the interior. The aspect of the deep
snow-beds covering valleys and plateaus, the snow-slopes
and small glaciers, and the general barrenness all along the
north, show that the snowy condition is habitual. Equally
habitual seems to be the more temperate weather a few
miles south, for there is a fair amount of vegetation on
which plenty of reindeer support themselves. The con
trast is most striking ; not a few miles only, but several
degrees of latitude might be imagined to separate these
neighbouring zones. The coast is the most Arctic region
we saw ; the bay appears relatively temperate.
The mountains along the west side of the bay are, as
I have said, magnificent. They resemble one another in
type, and so do the valleys that sunder them. The east
shore is less uniform and less generally fine, but the average
of its scenery is raised to a high level by certain splendid
prospects. In the main, as already stated, the New Fries
land peninsula, dividing Hinloopen Strait from Wijde Bay,
consists of a high icy plateau with a glaciated rock-front

GLACIER IN THE EAST SIDE OF WIJDE HAY.

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 295
on the west. The ice stops short at the edge of this
glaciated wall, except where it finds its way down ravines
cut down into the rocks. Of such ravines there are three
large and as many small. Down the large ones flow wide
ice tongues, gently sloping, very smooth, and offering a
notable contrast in texture and colour to the richly toned
and buttressed precipices of gneiss and ancient schists that
wall them in on both sides. Their crescent fronts, expand
ing beyond the mouths of their ravines, rise like walls of
marble and turquoise from the dark clear waters of the
fjord. The delicate sky line of the inland ice above com
pletes the picture. Opposite the second glacier we had the
steamer stopped in the midst of this scene of rare beauty,
just as the sunshine fell upon the splintered glacier-front
and the calm water, whilst the red, riven crags remained
behind in gloom. An absolute stillness reigned. Seals
peeped forth around us, numbers of fulmar petrels floated
upon the water near the boat. The clouds, resting on the
snow peaks opposite, moved and somewhat opened, showing
the direction of white ridges, and the existence of sharp
summits, whilst, up a deep and many-branching reindeer
valley, which opened just over against us, was such a deepen
ing and enrichment of colour to an incredible purple in
the remotest depth, as I think can seldom have been sur
passed even in an oriental imagination.
Garwood, whose alertness never failed on land or inland
waters, took advantage of the pause to feed and photograph
the fulmars. They squealed and quarrelled over the biscuits
he threw them, and for a moment, a score of them, for
getting their shyness in the excitement of combat, came
close under the steamer's bows. Ted and Battye indus
triously sketched, complaining of the rapidity wherewith
lights and colours changed. The cloud roof grew thinner,
and there came a shine and glamour on the snow, and in

296 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
the wreathed avenues of mist. Bluer grew the ice fronts,
ruddier the rocks, more purple the valleys, and more green
the sea.
Round went the propeller again, lining the water with
diverging waves. The panorama went on unrolling. De
vonian rocks invaded the west shore and streaked all the lower
slopes with skirts of red debris, which, buried in blue air, pro
duced astonishing effects. The east wall sloped, gentlier and
unbroken, up to the ice-field, over which domed clouds rolled
along. Farther in, still on the east, came deep cirques,
surrounded by fine areted peaks of hard rock, all white
with new snow, and jutting their heads into cloud. And
now we were approaching Cape Petermann, the bold,
steep-sided, mountain promontory that divides into two
fjords the head of the sound. The east fjord is the true
continuation of the main valley, and retains its leading
characteristics. It terminates in a broad, smooth glacier,
which flows down from the inland ice, and appears to be
advancing and driving back the sea. Narrower and grander
is the west branch, in reality a side valley, depressed below
the water level.
We turned up it, minded to land on the promontory in
the interests of botanical collecting, but the geologists, pre
ferring the Devonian of the west coast to the Hecla-Hook
of the Cape, gained the day, so we crossed over, going very
slowly and sounding, for there is little depth.
During the day Trevor-Battye collected several birds, of
which he was in need. At this point he shot a young little
auk. A greedy glaucous gull instantly snatched it up, but
the other barrel dropped him stone-dead, amidst cries of
" Sold again ! " from all on board. When the others had
landed, I went on alone up the bay, but with little profit,
for its head is quite shallow, and nothing new came in sight.

WEST FJORD, WIJDE BAY.

MOUNT SIR THOMAS AT 'IHE HEAD OF WEST FJORD, WIJDE BAY.

chap, xxi WIJDE BAY 297
The land is rapidly encroaching on the water, as at the head
of Dickson Bay.
We saw no glacier emptying into the bay at its SW.
extremity, though one is indicated on the chart. It may
have been hidden behind a corner. Pedersen said there
never was one here but a long green valley, far up which
he once went in pursuit of reindeer ; we had learned not
to put much confidence in his topographical memory.
The valley, whether containing a glacier or not, runs in
westward behind a fine sharp peak that stands out alone
and forms the most striking object in the view. South, at
the head of the bay, is a large mountain mass, to which I
have ventured to give the name Mount Sir Thomas. Wijde
Bay, like the greater part of the coasts and bays of Spits
bergen, was first explored by English whalers. They named it
Sir Thomas Smith's Bay.
The Dutch, following the English, called the place
Wijde Bay, and that name has stuck. It is a pity that
old designations should be thus obliterated. Sir Thomas's
name should, at all events, be preserved somewhere in the
neighbourhood. Most of the Norwegian, Swedish, and
German names that figure on our Admiralty Chart, and re
ceive currency from it, usurp the position of the original
English or Dutch names. The substitution for Wiche
Land (so named by its discoverer, Thomas Edge) of the
modern designation King Carl Land is the most glaring
instance of this impiety.
East and west of Mount Sir Thomas are passes by
which access might be attained to glaciers leading down
to the swamp at the head of Dickson Bay. The east pass
was reached from the south by Lieutenant Stjernspetz in
1883. Clouds prevented us from seeing it, and I was not
then informed of its existence, or I should certainly have

298 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxi
landed and explored it. Mount Sir Thomas might have been
ascended from the col, but what was the use when, save
for a few moments, it was buried in clouds almost to the
base, and so remained as long as we were in Wijde Bay ?
The water in all this inner part of the fjord, as at the head
of Dickson Bay, is of a reddish mud colour, stained by
dust of Devonian rock. We lay still awhile at our turning
point, and the sun again shone forth, casting an island-mantle
of radiance into the midst of the solemn region. Hither it
was well to have come. Nature doubtless in many places
builds her secret and almost impregnable fortresses on a
bigger scale. Many such were known to me in other parts
of the world. Memory now recalled them in order — her
most precious possessions ; but I was obliged to admit that
among them was none in which all the parts worked more
admirably together to produce an effect of grandeur than
in this remote and secluded fjord, with its bare red and
purple hills, its snow slopes and bulging glaciers, its
roof of uneven grey and white cloud, its calm dark
waters, its stony shores, and the broad beam of sunshine
striking low.
We returned and gathered up the others, then ran across
to Cape Petermann, and, taking our departure thence, made
a straight run down the midst of the bay. The engineer
undertook to keep his machine going at a uniform velocity ;
thus, by noting the times and taking a succession of bearings,
I was able to make a rough sketch survey of the hills along
both sides. A lace-like curtain of mist drooped over Peter
mann Hill as we ran away from it and into the freezing
wind. For five hours 1 stood at the head of the companion
taking observations with fingers deadly cold. The scenery
was as lovely as before, but I had eyes only for topographical
facts and must be blind to effects of beauty, collecting

CHAP. XXI

WIJDE BAY

299

materials for science instead of art. So absorbing was the
occupation that the five hours passed almost like a moment,
but when Grey Hook and the point off Mossel Bay were
in line with our boat and my work was done, fatigue and
hunger made themselves felt, and demanded satisfaction.

:,-?'Zy.

WEST SHORE OF WIJDE BAY.

2*"— - - t -

. ^y^^^*^ZZ/^W$ 5

THE THREE CROWNS FROM KINGS BAY.
CHAPTER XXII
THE WESTERN BAYS OF SPITSBERGEN
TURNING sharply to the west, at the mouth of Wijde
Bay, we headed for the Norways. I just looked into
Liefde Bay, with its numerous islands, and surroundings of
black and white hills, glanced at the low land of Welcome
Point and Red Beach, then went below and fell immedi
ately asleep. The Expres travelled steadily along, passing
between the Norways, then south of Cloven Cliff and
Vogelsang, and so through Dutch Bay to where Herr
AndreVs ship lay at anchor in Danes Gat. I awoke to
find the Expres anchored alongside of the Virgo at four
A.M. on August 10, after a voyage that was in some respects
as memorable as it was delightful and interesting.
A few hours' respite from travel were both necessary
and desirable — necessary, because the Exprcs needed coal
and the Virgo's people were asleep ; desirable, because our
powers of observation were jaded with new scenes, and
needed time to recruit. At the Virgo's breakfast hour the
skipper came over to make inquiries, on the part of Herr
Andr^e, as to the winds we had recently encountered. We
could only report a tolerably continuous breeze from the
south, except for the local northerly blast up Wijde Bay.

chap, xxn WESTERN BAYS 301
It was certain that the general air movement over Spits
bergen was towards the north ; at that moment, a strong
south wind was blowing, and the heavens seemed to be
on the point of clearing. Hopes arose that the balloon's
hour might be at hand ; but Herr Andree wisely decided
that it was not worth while risking success, so late in the
year, for the sake of a second-rate chance. Even if the
wind was good, the weather was unsettled and far from
clear. A weaker man would probably have gone up ; to
my thinking Herr Andr6e, of whose determination to ascend
when the right time came I was and am fully assured,
gave evidence of real strength and judgment, in preferring
to return home and face misunderstanding rather than to
go up at an unsuitable time of year, and in weather that
was certainly doubtful.
Presently Mr. Stadling came on board and gave us all
the news. We took on the mail for Europe, and the
coals. At ten A.M. the anchor was raised, and we were
off. "We came in by the South Gat; which way shall
we go out ? " was the question. I chose Danes Gat and
the rough sea at once, for novelty's sake, and that we
might look into Robbe Bay, now deserted as the Seven
Islands themselves, but in old days thronged with whale-
fishers. The sun at last shone warm again as we entered
the heaving sea, the south wind blew so strongly and
all looked so fair, that we thought of turning back to
tell Herr Andr6e how things were, for in the enclosure
of his rock-bound bay the state of the weather at large
was hardly discoverable. It was decided to mind our own
business, and on we went. Robbe Bay, with its ice-
smoothed hills of hardest rock, was quickly passed. Then
we saw ridges decked with snow and crested with needle
rocks shining in sunlight over the end of Danes Island.
They belonged to what the old navigators used to call

302 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii
Knottie Point, but this original name, like most of the
other English names, has been wiped off the chart.
Keeping far out, to avoid certain sunken rocks, till we
had come opposite South Gat, we ran for Magdalena Bay.
Its fame is indeed well deserved. The snow-fairies possess
few lovelier retreats in all the glacier regions of the world.
There was no time to' spare, for the swift south gale was
bringing up a storm of snow which came with the en
veloping clouds, and was about to overflow the hills into
the bay. The heaving sea, the dashing water, the tumbling
boat, the noisy wind, the low-racing clouds, tearing down
over the hills like some tidal wave breaking on a rock-bound
coast, formed a combination of circumstances which gave
to the view of Magdalena Bay a setting of excitement. There
was a vision of purest glaciers, tumbling between jagged
and jutting ridges of aiguilles, seamed by steep couloirs, a
vision of glaciers with wide blue-fronted snouts washed by
the blue sea, a radiating series of ice-rivers and cataracts
stretching back on all sides into the icy interior. The
buttress aretes were like so many Peteret ridges, powdered
with fresh snow on such little ledges as would retain it. A
moment only we beheld these things ; the curtain descended,
and they were gone.
Round went the helm once more, and back we plunged
into the open sea, now white with foam-caps, which the
wind caught up and drove along through the air. The
Seven Icebergs and all the features of the coast were lost
in fog, and a painful time we had of it for the next few
hours till Mitra Cape was passed. Here Kings and Cross
Bays open from a common mouth, and we bent in to see
them. Cross Bay is a deep and gloomy retreat, now seldom
visited, but once haunted by whales and their captors. Hills
rise steeply on either side, and seem to multiply in the dis
tance, where the end splits into three small divisions. Hill-

MAGDALENA BAY.

GLACIER AT THE HEAD OF KINGS BAY.

chap, xxii WESTERN BAYS 303
sides and valleys were white with snow. If Cross Bay
presents an effect of depth and narrowness, Kings Bay, with
out really being much wider, has an aspect of breadth. This
is due, partly to the fact that the mountains do not rise
directly from the water, but from the head of a wide sloping
beach ; partly because the end, instead of being enclosed
by a throng of peaks, is occupied by the broad front of a
splendid glacier, no less than six miles wide, flowing from
the south-east and draining the same reservoir which supplies
the great ice-tongues that empty into the north side of Ice
Fjord and round as far as Dickson Bay. From this glacier
rise the famous peaks called the Three Crowns. These,
according to the map, stand at the very head of the bay, and
should have been visible from its mouth. I was puzzled by
their non-appearance. In fact, they are not situated in the
position assigned to them, but farther north, their direction
being indicated by this, that when we were about two miles
due south of the Middle Hook dividing Cross and Kings Bays,
the three peaks were hidden behind the rounded promontory
of red glaciated rock which forms the east side of Blom-
strands Harbour. The Crowns did not appear till we had
cleared that promontory, and then not three in a row, but at
the points of a right-angled triangle.
Again came the luck of a little sunshine, casting upon
the icy bay a brief aspect of gaiety. The wide glacier,
stretching back into the expanse of the interior, and burying
the bases of a number of considerable hills, was the centre
of attraction. On the north were splintered peaks of archaean
formations. The Crowns and their companions are built
of more recent rock, horizontally bedded, and which, by
its aspect of regularity, renders the hills like the work of
men's hands, so that their relatively small scale as natural
objects is forgotten. Each of the Crowns resembles the
second Pyramid of Gizeh — the one still capped with the

3<H SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii
remains of its original casing. Like it they are ruinous, but
strangely symmetrical, peculiar rather than beautiful. In
this strange region of unusual forms they are admirably
placed, with splintered peaks near at hand for contrast, the
huge ice-rounded mass of hard red granite close by, and
the ice-sheet like a great marble floor below, between, and
beyond them.
In the great ranges each component mountain is so
large that a few only can be seen at one time from near
at hand. From high and wide-embracing points of view
alone can the effect of complexity be obtained. But here,
where each mountain is actually small, though of noble
proportions, many can be seen at once from no great
distance ; thus each view has an involved appearance, for
there are always several whole ranges to look at, and not
merely a few mountain units. So it is at the head of Kings
Bay. One looks up several valleys, some of them so deeply
filled with ice that arms flow across from one to another,
actually isolating the peaks and turning them into true
nunataks, the only true nunataks we saw from near at
hand. If the glaciers were to retreat, the bay would extend
much farther inland, for the whole of its head is filled up
with ice, to what distance there is no means of judging.
Singularly inviting as a highway was the chief glacier,
stretching back SE. to an apparent col, whence the great
glacier of the North Fjord probably takes its origin. In
fact, we saw no place better suited to be a centre for the
exploration of the ice-sheet and the mountain ranges than
Kings Bay. A mountaineer, with the existing facilities,
might be landed here with a sledge and the requisite ap
pliances, and left for a month. In that time he could do
most valuable work, besides having delightful and novel
experiences. Let the Alpine Club look to it ; the novelty
will not last long.

chap, xxii WESTERN BAYS 305
After drinking our fill of the fine prospect, we turned
about and headed for the sea, making our way through
many great masses of floating ice — seracs fallen from the
glacier cliff, and already melted into the most fantastic
forms. One was of such beautiful outline and colour
that we came to alongside of it to give the artists time for
sketching. Then away to the sea, and the recongregat-
ing fogs and clouds, which utterly hid the end of King
Charles's Foreland. Once round Quade Hook wind and
waves were dead against us. The mountains on either hand
of Keerwyk were invisible. Only a narrow strip of beach
or rock divided the watery heavens from the misty sea.
Landmarks were hidden ; the boat had to be steered by
dead reckoning through the shallows. As there was nothing
to be seen we turned in, and only the skipper kept the
deck, planted in his little elevated steering-box just forward
of the funnel. A rude shock fetched us suddenly from the
land of dreams. We had touched bottom on the Bar, the
bank which Barendsz discovered and could not sail over. A
second and more prolonged bump followed, then a third.
Our strong little craft gave a kind of jump, and we were
over, lurching and rolling as before. A few moments later
all were asleep again.
The orders were to run straight for Bell Sound, passing
the mouth of Ice Fjord. Gregory was to be landed at
Cape Lyell, where is a famous bed of fossil plants. Garwood
and Trevor-Battye desired to explore Axel Island. I wished
to see the head of Low Sound, and to have another look
up the valley of the Shallow River, visited from Cairn
Camp by Garwood and me on June 28. It was about seven
A.M. (Aug. 11), when we awoke off the mouth of Bell Sound
and prepared to put our plans into execution. Clouds were
on the hill-tops, but below them the air was clear, and the
eye ranged afar. I had to rouse myself to observe, for I
U

306 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii
was becoming tired of the sulking cloud-roof, the blustery
chilly south-east wind, and the splashing sea. Restless water
in front, a band of black and white beyond, and then the
long grey firmament — the combination was becoming weari
some. I longed to be on solid earth again.
When Gregory had landed, running was made for the
north end of Axel Island. This long, low, carboniferous rock,
rising at its highest but a few metres above sea level, and
separated at both extremities from the land by narrow
channels, almost blocks the entrance to Low Sound. At
one time it must have been continuous with the hills
north and south. The ancient glacier that filled Low Sound
perhaps helped to tear it down, taking advantage of the ver
tical dip of its slab-like strata, so similar in arrangement to
the rocks of the Karakorams, which ice also breaks away
when it flows across their strike. When the Low Sound glacier
departed, water denuded the soft horizontally stratified rocks
and cut gorges at both ends of what became an island when
the whole was depressed, and the sea ran in and filled the
valley. It is for geologists to say whether Axel Island corresponds
in nature, as it certainly corresponds in form, with the
transverse submarine rock-bars across the mouths of several
Norwegian and Scotch fjords. Once this island must have
been below sea level, and formed just such a submerged bar.
It has risen above the surface with the general elevation of
the land now observable in Spitsbergen. There is a similar
though less level-topped bar across the mouth of Van Keulen
Bay. If the early charts are to be trusted, the channels north
and south of Axel Island were considerably wider in the
seventeenth century than they are to-day.
All the bays in the west coast of Spitsbergen are sub
merged river valleys, and the rivers that formed them had, as
they still have, easy work in cutting down the soft horizontally

chap, xxii WESTERN BAYS 307
bedded rocks that form the bulk of the interior. But along
the west shore they were confronted by the line of hardest
and most ancient rocks. Relatively narrow exits therefore
are the rule, exits sometimes used in common by two or
three main valleys. At either side of these the ends of
the hard ridge stand up as monumental doorposts of the
gate. Ice Fjord owes much of its fine first impression to the
peaks of the Dead Man and Mount Starashchin, between
which it is entered. There are corresponding Pillars of
Hercules to Low Sound. That to the north was most striking.
I have been told that its proper name is Bell Mountain, and
that from it the bay is called Bell Sound. I have seldom
seen a mountain that, for its size, impressed me more. It
possesses, from some points of view, an aspect of bold and
curving uplift, emphasised by its shaggy head and great mane
of snow. The sweeping outlines of its clearly defined and
contorted strata, with the strange and varied colouring of the
rocks, and the brilliant green on the ledges, all the lines
leading up to the bold, nodding brow, form the elements of
a mountain composition of excellent quality.
The tide was setting in through the narrow entrance with
a great rush and turmoil. A sound of many waters filled the
air, a deep diapason extraordinarily impressive. The other
wise smooth strait bulged up from below in swelling
domes, round which wavelets broke in rings towards the
centre. Rushing currents caught and carried the steamer
this way and that, and swung her about like a cork. It was
all most agreeably exciting.1 Once within the gate and
under shelter of the island all was calm. Garwood, Trevor-
Battye, and Ted went off in the row-boat to land, whilst I
steamed on up the north side of Low Sound. Into the south
side thirteen parallel valleys empty. They are all much
1 It is stated that the tide runs much more strongly out than in, as might be
anticipated, and is more rapid through the south than the norlh entry.

308 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii
alike, and are divided from one another by regular, flat-
topped, even-sided ridges, like so many railway embankments,
end-on to the fjord.
The north shore is more varied and beautiful. It begins
with a wide green valley, debouching west of Coal Mount, and
apparently continuing the depression of which Green Har
bour is the north extremity. Looking back now upon Bell
Mountain, whose form as beheld from this point of view
matches its designation, I thought I had never seen a more
splendid scheme of purple colouring — grey purple were water
and sky ; the glacier front and slope were of a darker tone,
whilst the rocks and low land, Axel Island and all the shore,
were so rich as to be almost like a warm black velvet. In
the clouds over the snow was an ice-blink, adding an element
of weirdness, but the grandeur of the mountain dominated
the whole.
It is needless to catalogue the glaciers and valleys that
diversify the north coast. They were of minor interest to
me. One of them continues the Coles Bay depression, and
all give access to the green and boggy interior, which is only
snow-capped at a relatively high level. What I was on the
look-out for was what the unimaginative Norwegian hunters
call the Stordal, which empties from the north-east into the
northernmost bay of the fjord. It was named Ondiepe or
Drooge (Shallow or Dry) Rivier by the early Dutch navi
gators, and the name ought to be preserved. Dreary Valley
empties into it. It was the mouth of Dreary Valley I was
now anxious to see, in order to verify a bearing taken thence
on that dreadfully cold June morning, and which I had
since imagined (wrongly, as it proved) to have been inac
curate. Rounding a low promontory, the Expres came in
sight of the wished-for view, and at that moment her engines
broke clown. I was not sorry. Notable scenes had been
reeled off before our eyes so rapidly, and for so many

chap, xxii WESTERN BAYS

3°9

successive days, that it was pleasant to have pause and lie
still in one place, if only for an hour or two.
I lay about amongst the coal-tubs on deck, and drank
in the view at leisure. The chilly air presently drove me
below into the deserted cabin. I measured and made a
plan of it. In area it was about twice the size of a grand

BELL MOUNTAIN FROM LOW SOUND.

piano where it was broadest, that is to say, above the shelf !
Floor, seats, and shelves were occupied by a chaos of
things — bottles, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, spirit tins,
baggage, coats, rugs, botany presses, various tins, cameras,
charts, sketching blocks, changing bags, geological hammers
and specimens, instruments, guns, cartridge-boxes, books,
food, plates, and countless boots, long and short. This

310 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii
heap was about knee-deep, and lay just where the motion
of the boat had rolled its component parts. The confusion
was not unpicturesque. I did not at this time learn what
we were afterwards told, that the engines had been all along
in an extremely " dicky " state. The boiler had not been
cleaned for a long time, and was thickly encrusted. Various
bearings were coming loose, and there were many other
matters requiring attention. The fact that we were not
paralysed in the midst of the ice is not the smallest
piece of good luck that attended our exceptionally lucky
voyage. In due time the machine began working again, and the
boat advanced over the now glassy fjord. Quite small waves,
rendering uneven the surface of the sea, are large enough
to hide from view birds floating or flying low beyond a very
short radius from the deck of a little boat. But when the
water is calm, the range of vision for objects upon it
widens, and a small disturbance of its smoothness, even at
a great distance, immediately attracts attention. Now the
whole visible area seemed alive with sea-fowl, floating, rising,
or diving. Fulmars were specially in evidence, and I noticed
that, when rising off the water, they run rapidly along the
surface, striking it hard with alternate feet in a manner
adopted by no other bird in these regions.
After approaching as close to the mouth of the Shallow
River as we could without going aground, and when all the
information I required was obtained, we bent away south
ward under the end of Sundewall Mount, and turned
up the extreme easterly branch of the fjord. The scenery
became grander, a delightful harmony in blue with just one
white curtain of mist, let down over the hill crests and the
deep indigo lower slopes from the blue clouds to the blue
water, whose still surface was broken by the slow emer
gence of many seals. The skipper shot one, so fat that

chap, xxii WESTERN BAYS

311

it floated and was hauled on board. The little deck ran
crimson with its blood.
It was annoying that all the larger mountains should
have remained invisible. Fox Peak and its neighbours,
so well known to me, should have been in sight, but they

VALLEY OF THE SHALLOW RIVER, FROM LOW SOUND.

were cloud-capped and fog-enveloped, and so remained.
After completing the tour of the bay and taking the Axel
Island contingent on board, we ran for Gregory. The
water being slack, our exit through the narrows was unex
citing. Gregory came off with a boatful of fossil plants.
He had beguiled some of the waiting time by a long talk
with Svensen, a most intelligent sloop-captain, whose vessel

312 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxii
was at the moment in Schoonhoven, with an almost full
cargo of white whales. The wind had dropped, but a most
uncomfortable ground-swell made it difficult to lie on the
narrow seats. The Expres rolled intemperately about. All
of us were afflicted with violent colds — an epidemic pro
bably caught from the people of the Virgo, for we had
been free from such trouble while we remained alone, not
withstanding our constant wettings and chills. The balloon
colony were in frequent communication with Europe, and
were sufficiently numerous, perhaps, to keep colds going
among them. Whatever the cause, sneezing and coughing
now raised echoes in our little cabin, and added to the
discomfort of our passage.
Just as we were quitting Schoonhoven (Aug. 12), Gar
wood suggested that we should run south, and visit Horn
Sound, for the purpose of climbing the highest measured
peak in Spitsbergen. It was originally named Hedgehog
Mountain by the English whalers, but the Norwegians have
changed this to the commonplace Hornsunds Tind, by
which designation it is now generally known. The ascent
was part of my original plan, and I would gladly have
gone to make it, but duty called me to Advent Point, whose
latitude I still needed to observe, as well as the true bearing
from it of Bunting Bluff. The date fixed for the departure
of the last steamer was August 15, and all my efforts to
make arrangements to lengthen our stay proved unsuccess
ful. Northward, therefore, the Expres had to be steered.

Advent Hills from Advent Point

CHAPTER XXIII
HORN SOUND AND HOME
EARLY on August 12, Starashchin Cape was rounded and
Ice Fjord entered in a dense fog, through which the
way had to be felt to Advent Bay. At seven A.M., the anchor
was dropped in the old anchorage, and we landed, after a
most interesting voyage of over 1000 miles — the longest in
so small a steamer ever performed in Arctic seas, and I
believe, after searching all available records, the most
complete coasting voyage around Spitsbergen ever accom
plished in a single summer. Goods and kit were landed
and camp pitched by noon, with the accuracy that comes
from practice. The tents were within a few inches of high
water mark, and the day's spring-tide almost flowed in. A
pallid flush of sunshine gleamed for a moment, and Bunting
Bluff almost became visible, but the clouds descended before
the sun could be seen, and a steady downpour of rain,
thoroughly English in type, set in. Garwood now came to
me to say that he had arranged with the Expres to take him
to Horn Sound, to climb Mount Hedgehog. The engines
needed some botching, but the boat would be ready to sail
next day (13th), and they would reach Horn Sound on the
14th. The Lofoten, the steamer that was to carry us to
Norway, was to sail on the 15th. With luck, therefore, they
might climb the mountain on the 14th and 15th, in time to
run out with the Expres, and tranship to the Lofoten in the
open sea. Failing that, the voyage to Norway must be com
pleted in the Expres, which of course had to return to Tromso
313

3H SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiii
somehow. Trevor-Battye, Garwood said, had agreed to come
with him, though he was not eager to climb the mountain,
having never made a regular mountain ascent before.
Till the sun had been observed it was not possible for me
to go. My presence on the mountain was in no sense neces
sary, as Horn Sound and the surrounding hills had already
been mapped by Von Sterneck in 1872.1 Moreover, there was
the business of the expedition to be attended to, and the re
maining baggage to be packed. I was pledged to return with
the Lofoten to look after the sale of the ponies at Tromso and
other matters. I was, therefore, forced to let Garwood and
Trevor-Battye go without me. Garwood heard my decision
with heartless glee. "Then you will lend me your climbing
boots. I sent mine back to Norway by the last steamer along
with the other baggage." It really showed wonderful self-
denial on his part not to have told me this sooner, for
without nailed boots he could not safely have made the
ascent, and mine were the only ones to be had.
We spent the rest of the day putting things together for
the Horn Sound party. In the evening I had a long talk
with Bottolfsen about Spitsbergen traditions, the Russian
trappers, and the doings of Mr. Jeaffreson's party while he
was with them, all which I duly noted down from his lips.
He said that the last Russian hunters who visited Spits
bergen were a group of three or five, whose huts were on
the Dun Islands. They met a tragic end, which shall be
recounted as far as possible in his own words.
" The story," he said, " is written down and printed. It is
well known in Hammerfest and Tromso. I once read it and
have often heard it told, but I do not now remember all the
details. It was, at all events, to this effect. There was at
Hammerfest a skipper named Andersen, by birth a Dane, but
regularly settled in Hammerfest. This year — it may have
1 " Petermann's Mittheilungen," 1874, Tafel 4.

chap, xxiii HORN SOUND 315
been fifty years ago, or more — he sailed with his sloop in
the spring, and came in June to the Dun Islands. Now the
Russians had been very successful in their winter trappings,
and they had a great quantity of skins, which Andersen saw
and coveted. He thought it would be cheaper to take them
than to buy them, so he just killed the Russians, who were
weak, and took their stuff away. He killed them with a
harpoon on which was his name, and, when he went off, he
forgot the harpoon and left it behind. Shortly afterwards
the skipper Stuer of Tromso came that way with his sloop,
and he too landed on the Dun Islands, and found the bodies
of the murdered Russians, and in one of them Andersen's
harpoon sticking, so he knew what had happened. He sailed
away and met Andersen's sloop, and went on board and
talked with Andersen, who suspected that Stuer had found
him out, though nothing was said. At all events, Andersen
was afraid, and considered how he might be rid of Stuer.
"They sailed on, hunting along the edge of the ice-pack,
and one day, when they were very far from land and Stuer
was away from his sloop in his walrus-boat, Andersen went
on to Stuer's sloop and managed to do it some harm, so
that presently it seemed to be sinking. Then he went again
to the sloop and rescued Stuer's wife and the people on
board, and sailed away with them to Hammerfest ; for,
what with the things he had taken from the Dun Islands,
and the catch he had made, he had already a full cargo.
At Hammerfest he landed the people and his cargo, and
told how Stuer's sloop had gone down, and how Stuer him
self must be lost, for he was away in his open walrus boat,
and had not returned and could not be found. Then he
sailed away again from Hammerfest to the ice.
"Meanwhile Stuer had returned to his sloop and found
her in a bad way, but he succeeded in patching her up and
brought her back to Tromso, where he met his wife. He

316 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiii
soon saw what Andersen must have done, so he related all
that he knew about the Russians. But vengeance was
already on Andersen's track. He took his sloop far up
into the ice, which came packing all around him so that
he could find no way out. Leaving the ship, he got on to
a high iceberg and climbed to the very topmost peak of it,
for it was tall and sharp. As he stood on the top, looking
all round for a way to come out of the ice, the great ice
berg trembled, and then turned right over. It flung the
murderer into the sea and sucked him under, so that he was
never seen again, and went straight to hell."
The wind sobbed and howled, as I sat in the tent listen
ing to this tale. The water of the bay broke on the shingly
beach a yard or two off. Rain deluged the tent roof. The
surroundings matched the story which Bottolfsen told with
energetic gestures and glittering eyes.
About noon next day (13th) the Expres sailed in the con
tinuing downpour. The outlook was not promising for a
climb, but I felt confident that if the thing could be done,
Garwood would do it. All day long I worked at journals,
records, and baggage. In the evening, now noticeably
duller than the day, Gregory and I wandered up to the
winterer's grave and the ruins of his hut. Clouds were
low over the bay, but a pale misty light crept beneath
them, and spread upon the calm bosom of the waters, against
which the black crosses stood out sharplv. The air was
still. A settled melancholy pervaded the silent scene. Dark
ness hung on the skirts of the hills. A mild drizzle began
to fall, and the atmosphere grew thick and greyer. A school
of white whales came curving and blowing through the glassy
water, close along the shore, where the wrecked cutter lay
stranded. Silence laid its hand upon us also. Time seemed
to be standing still. It was our last evening on the shores
of Spitsbergen.

chap, xxiii HORN SOUND 317
Next day the Lofoten duly came in. She loaded up
our things, missing only one case, which, as it happened,
was fortunately left behind. In Mr. Jeaffreson's party was,
as I have stated before, an artist, Mr. Huyshe Walkey,
with whom at this time we had much conversation. Mr.
Jeaffreson, who arrived in Spitsbergen on July 10, with the
intention of making some explorations, was unfortunately
recalled by private affairs on the 25th of the same month,
before he had been able to accomplish any new work. He
left Mr. Walkey behind, expecting to be detained in Norway
for a few days only, and to return and join him. He
had not, as yet, been able to do so, but Walkey was under
the impression that he would still come and relieve him.
Walkey was much urged to avail himself of the Lofoten's
last trip, and make good his retreat, but he held to his
opinion that duty called him to stay, and he stayed. He
was insufficiently provided with food, and, had it not been
for the case of provisions we accidentally left behind, and
which he fortunately discovered, he would have fared even
worse than he did. Eventually he was brought home by
Baron de Geer, in his already overcrowded cutter.
In the evening came gleams of light in the north, and
a stirring in the air. "The weather is going to change,"
said Pedersen, " See ! there is pink light." And now a
series of the rarest and most delicately beautiful effects suc
ceeded one another over Ice Fjord, or were simultaneously
exhibited side by side to the despair of our artist. The
cloud-roof rose just clear of the glaciers of Cape Boheman
and their dividing hills, but from it depended a veil of
mist, lacelike and transparent, through which the hills were
clearly visible. The midnight sun was low, hidden behind
the clouds, but its light flowed beneath them, and tinted
the mist-veil, hills, and glacier-flat with tenderest rose, except
where blue shadows intervened, or purple rocks obtruded.

318 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiii
Each long glacier, sweeping gently down to the fjord, was
the centre of a separate picture, perfectly composed. The
Nord Fjord's portal was likewise hung with a purple trans
parent veil, through which appeared ridges of increasing
evanescence and incredible wealth of colour, one behind
another, till the last melted into light. It was the first sunset
glory Spitsbergen had shown us, heralding the long winter
night. There was no hurrying excitement of changing
effects. Colours and tones lasted long and altered slowly.
Over our very heads at length, and away to the south, the
clouds became tinged with faintest pink. " Perhaps we
shall sail in clear weather," we said, " and see the hill-tops as
we go." But it was not to be.
After midnight, when all my work was done and the
baggage stowed, I walked over Advent Flats, taking a final
survey of the dreary shore. Its flower carpet was faded.
All the little plants were in autumnal attire, making sheets
of scarlet and orange, gold and brown, on the levels and
slopes of the hills. The approach of winter was in the air
and upon the earth. Many birds were already gone ; others
were going or collecting to go. Our flight-time also was
come. The brief summer of Spitsbergen had not seemed
brief to us, nor its long day uneventful. Farewell to you,
cold and barren slopes, icy broads, bulging glaciers, squdgy
bogs, and landlocked waters of so many moods ! It is
good to have seen you, but a brief acquaintance suffices.
Memory will not let your beauties slip. Your toils and
discomforts, moved into the past, have become agreeable
reminiscences. What we could compass of you we have
made our own. Let others who follow learn from our
mistakes and profit by our blunders.
After a mid-day meal (Aug. 15), we bade Baron de Geer,
Lieutenant Knorring, and Walkey farewell. The anchor
was raised and the ship moved slowly along. De Geer's

chap, xxiii HORN SOUND 319
men lit a great bonfire on shore in our honour, bombs
were exploded, guns fired, flags waved from the tents as
we passed. Walkey gave us a send-off of his own with rifle
shots and the dipping of his little flag. A strange passenger
on board, in his enthusiasm of recognition, carelessly took
a shot at Walkey ; the bullet went unpleasantly near. Bullets,
in fact, were flying all over the place with really frightening
casualness after the true Advent Bay manner ! It was all
soon over, and we steamed down the fjord in wintry weather
with clouds upon all the hills.
On board was a German gentleman, Dr. Wegener, who
had come up for a second time this year, hoping to go on
with the Expres to see Herr Andree. As the little steamer
was absent we ran straight out to sea, where on the far
horizon a sail was descried. In an hour or two we came up
with the craft, which proved to be a shark-fisher. They
catch the fish, the "blind shark" (Squalus Grcenlandicus),
with a long line, haul them on board, cut out their livers
(from which cod-liver oil is made), inflate their stomachs,
and chuck them overboard. If something were not done
to keep the dead fish afloat, they would sink and no more
would be caught. We stopped alongside in the tumbling
sea, and the fisher of sharks came off in a boat, and was
asked whether he would take Dr. Wegener up to Andrew's.
With the usual high estimate of the value of their services
which prevails amongst North Norwegian seamen, he de
manded 600 crowns for the job, at the outside a two days'
sail under the conditions existing. The offer was declined.
We ran down the coast, a long way from shore, seeing
only that Bell Sound was filled with a vague leaden cloud
resting on the water. " The sea-fog, like a ghost,
Haunted the dreary coast,"
standing out before the island, a leaden wall, through

320 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiii
which one bold ram -like promontory jutted forth. It
seemed as though solid night had fallen upon the island,
and held it down in a foul embrace. The gloom reached
out over the sea, threatening to overwhelm whoever should
dare approach. Who could help thinking of " the land of
the Cimmerians, shrouded in mist and cloud, where the
shining sun never looks down with his rays, neither when
he climbs up the starry heaven nor when he returns earth
ward from the firmament, but deadly night is outspread over
miserable mortals " ? 1
By six o'clock next morning (Aug. 16), we were
entering Horn Sound, not for the purpose of retrieving
Garwood, but to carry off the Expres for Dr. Wegener.
Snow was falling, and there was much new snow on all
sides, yet we had fine views of the crags and glaciers that
immediately surround the bay, though Hedgehog Mountain
was utterly hidden. In this, as in all west coast fjords,
splendid mountains stand on either side of the entrance,
the finer being Rotjes Mountain on the north, into the heart
of which runs a short green valley. Farther in on this
side are two splendid glacier tongues flowing from the inland
ice. The right bank of the inner (Paierl Glacier) consists
of an exceptionally grand rock ridge, steep on the west,
and plumb-vertical on the east side, so that the end section
is very bold. At the head of the sound is a third great
glacier, and round to the south a fourth, which does not
quite reach the water's edge.
Off it the Expres was anchored in the retired Goes
Haven, and it was up this glacier that our friends had gone
to look for Hornsunds Tind, whereof not a trace was
discoverable by us. All we could see was the wide gently
domed end of the glacier, spreading back into fog with
mountain bases on either hand. The rest was left to the
1 " Odyssey," xi. (vide Butcher and Lang).

chap, xxiii HORN SOUND 321
imagination to picture as it pleased, and in these latitudes
it works wildly. The men on the Expres stated that Garwood,
Trevor-Battye, and Bottolfsen had gone off the previous
afternoon, carrying tent and provisions, and had not since
returned. In such weather it was easy to believe all manner
of misfortunes. Possibly the next few hours would bring
them back either successful or defeated. We decided to
wait for them as long as the Lofoten's margin of time per
mitted. The anchor was dropped, silence reigned, and snow
began to fall heavily.
Gregory, always on the alert, caused a boat to be lowered
and went off to dredge. The hours passed and no one
came. At noon it was necessary to sail. When we quitted
the Sound the surrounding hills were all hidden, and only
the base of Rotjes Mount and the broad low front of Torell's
glacier could be seen, with the fateful Dun Islands lying
before it. In the south the clouds were a little barred
and broken with golden lines and the faint reminiscence
of sunshine. As we passed South Cape the mists lifted
and broke a little, showing the front of the southernmost
glacier. Then the peak of Hornsunds Tind peeped through
a cloud-hole to see whether we were really gone, and an
hour later the whole mountain cleared and stood forth defiant
in the north, a mighty tower to all appearance, though really
it is but a long narrow ridge, a little peaked at one end.
The sun presently reached and began to warm us a little ;
we faced it with joy, and ran for it, fast as the engines
could carry us. Spitsbergen was behind on the horizon of
memory. Europe was ahead, and all our thoughts were
turned to warmth and home.
During almost two days we were horribly rolled about
by half a gale from the west. Then we reached the whaling
station of Rolfso near the North Cape, and Hammerfest
three hours later. Signs of rejoicing in the bunting on the

322 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiii
ships, and the people crowding expectantly about, were the
first information we had of great good news. Nansen had
arrived at Vardo in Mr. Harmsworth's ship, the Windward,
and was expected to reach Hammerfest very soon. The
Windward had already come in and was anchored not far
away. We cast anchor alongside of Sir George Baden-
Powell's yacht Otaria, newly come in with a successful
eclipse party from Novaia Zemlia. Presently the masts
of a steamer appeared over a low promontory. It was the
mail-boat with Nansen on board.
The population of Hammerfest gathered about the land
ing-stage. A band played patriotic airs, guns were fired, and
the steamer came in, amidst cheers and such enthusiasm as a
reserved Norwegian multitude considers it not undignified
to manifest. The loudest shouts came from the Otaria, and
from my excellent German friend Dr. Wegener. A few
moments later I was enjoying the great happiness of wel
coming Dr. Nansen in person, and hearing from his own
lips, and those of his brave companion, Herr Johansen, a
brief account, most modestly given, of the wonderful and
epoch-making achievements they had accomplished. No
more joyous conclusion to our own enterprise could have
been desired than this encounter with the greatest modern
hero of Arctic enterprise.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT HEDGEHOG, OR
HORNSUNDS TIND
By E. J. GARWOOD
FINDING, on our arrival at Advent Bay, after our voyage
round the coast, that three days must elapse before our
ship returned to Norway, and that my services were no
longer required to drive Carl and the ponies, all of whom
had been shipped off to Norway, I proceeded to put into
effect a project which I had long cherished, of running down
to the south of the island and exploring Horn Sound, and,
if possible, ascending Mount Hedgehog. This at least was
the excuse I gave for my departure. The real reason was
that I preferred being absent when Conway discovered the
bill I had run up for luncheons at the Tourist Hut, during
my three lonely days at Advent Bay, when I returned to
the coast after living for five weeks on Emergency Food in
the interior.
Trevor-Battye agreed to accompany me, and Conway
lent me his boots. We piled the deck of the little Expres
with as much coal as she could carry in sacks and barrels,
and steamed away, in a drizzling fog, about noon of the
13th, taking with us Ice-master Bottolfsen and a crew of
three men.
After an uncomfortable run of eighteen hours down the
coast, we arrived at Horn Sound in a thick mist, and anchored
among some rocks out of reach of a stream of drift ice. We

324 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
spent a day waiting for the weather, and were prepared to
sit it out ; but the weather met us with an equal determina
tion. Our provisions were limited, so we decided to start
next day in spite of fog.
The morning was spent in preparations. None of us had
much to boast about in the matter of boots. I was wearing
Conway's, which were a quarter of an inch too short for
me ; Trevor-Battye had some old shooting-boots with small
mud nails ; we rigged up Bottolfsen in some old sea-boots,
into which we hammered some cricket spikes, found in
Trevor - Battye's canvas waders. There was still another
man to provide for, but we only intended to take him as far
as our sleeping-place, so I told, him to carry an extra pair
of socks to pull over his boots. He did so, but as he put
them on immediately we landed, he arrived at the edge of
the ice with a pair of frilled woollen spats1 and became
rather an anxiety on the glacier. Bottolfsen, having visions
of sport, insisted on carrying a gun in spite of our attempt
to dissuade him. Leaving the launch at three P.M. we landed
in the south-east corner of Goes Bay, which lies about half-way
along the southern margin of Horn Sound. Shouldering a
tent, a rug, and provisions for twenty-four hours, we started
in, nearly due south, over the flat-raised beach, which gradually
merged inland into the terminal moraine of a large glacier.
The previous afternoon I had ascended a small hill near
the coast, in order if possible to obtain a view of our peak,
but everything over five or six hundred feet high was
bound in fog, and I could only see the snout of a glacier,
which appeared to fill the upper part of a valley. This
glacier led in the direction in which, judging by the chart,
Mount Hedgehog should be.
1 In Mr. Garwood's absence abroad I am seeing this through the press for him.
His handwriting is not of the most legible. The best the typewriter has been able
to make of this sentence is, "he aimed at the edge of the ice with a pair of pilled
wooled spots." The above is a merely conjectural emendation !

chap, xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 325
Lacking more definite information, we decided to ascend
this valley, steering generally towards the south-east, and
hoping to stumble upon our peak somewhere up in the fog.
After examining the relics of an old blubber-boiling estab
lishment on the coast, we started up the right side of the valley,
going sometimes over debris slopes and sometimes on an
old lateral moraine ; thus we reached the edge of the glacier.
On the way we crossed a small medial moraine, composed
entirely of handsome grey marble veined with pink, contri
buted by a small glacier issuing from a steep-sided gorge to
the SE. Here we climbed on to the glacier, and entering
at the same time into the zone of fog, steered by compass
in a south-easterly direction. It was not long before we
became involved in a labyrinth of crevasses. They ran,
roughly speaking, at right angles to our line of route, so that,
prevented as we were by the fog from seeing beyond a
short distance ahead, our progress became slower and more
laborious. My companions had scarcely any previous knowledge of
glacier work, and it was with increasing anxiety that I
watched our friend the cook with the woollen spats cross
each succeeding crevasse. After some time spent in en
deavouring to reach the left side of the glacier, we retraced
our steps to the moraine we had abandoned, and continued
for some distance along it till forced again on to the ice.
Here, however, the gradient was less steep, and the crevasses
fewer and narrower. But the surface was snow-covered, and
the bridges treacherous in the extreme. In Spitsbergen, as
long as the sun is above the horizon in the summer months,
the temperature rarely sinks below the freezing-point in the
valleys, so that the snow, left unmelted from the previous
winter, is usually rotten and unsafe. Thick bridges, which
in the Alps would bear a considerable weight even at mid
day, here yield readily to a prod of the axe. Extraordinary

326 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
care was thus rendered necessary ; we found it unsafe to
jump even narrow crevasses on account of the untrustworthy
nature of the landing afforded by their edges.
As we advanced diagonally up the glacier the fog thickened ;
presently snow began to fall. Matters looked rather hope
less. We sat down on the snow, ate our Emergency Food,
and discussed the situation. After a short halt we pushed
on again, determined to continue the advance in a south
easterly direction until we reached the watershed of the
Island, or were stopped by impassable crevasses. Imper
ceptibly the fog thickened until one co.uld scarcely see his
neighbour on the rope. Although the ground at our feet
was so indistinct, that the white lines, indicating the snow-
filled cracks of the neve, crevasses, were not always dis
cernible, the glare reflected from fog and snow was almost
blinding. It was impossible to see at all with glasses, and the
strain on the eyes without them was most trying. I felt a
curious mesmeric drowsiness stealing over me, such as I
have occasionally experienced in a slight degree in Switzer
land after a long day on the snow. We were affected by
this feeling when crossing the Ivory Glacier, but now the
strain on the eyes was greater and the feeling more intense.
Presently we found ourselves again amongst open crevasses
which we endeavoured to outflank, but after following their
edges for some time Trevor-Battye, who was behind, keeping
me straight as far as possible by compass, announced that
we were heading due north, and would soon be returning
on our tracks. We retraced our steps, turned the crevasses
on the far side, and regained the more level plateau. It
was subsequently proved that the crevasses ran in a circular
manner round the bulging dome of ice, due doubtless to a
projection in the floor of the valley at this point. But for
the compass we might have wandered round the dome in
the thick fog till it cleared the next evening.

chap, xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 327
We continued cautiously up the plateau after this, prod
ding at every step, until we estimated that we must have
come a distance of at least five miles from the coast. The
ground appeared to drop slightly in front of us. We halted
to consult, and had just agreed that we must have passed
the watershed and be descending towards the east coast,
when the fog cleared for a moment in front of us, and
revealed within a stone's throw a precipitous wall of rock
fully 3000 feet in height. The top was still hidden in the
fog but what we saw convinced us that this was certainly
part of the mountain of which we were in search. At the
same time we discovered a rocky island on our right rising
out of the glacier ; we decided to camp on it for the night..
A bearing of it was quickly taken, and the fog closed down
again as thick as before. We reached the rock, however, at
8.30 P.M. without further accident than the temporary loss of
a leg in a crevasse. Raking together such stray stones and
earth as could be found, we pitched our camp (2074 feet) on
a rocky ledge and searched for water. Not a drop could we
discover. The quest had to be given up in despair, and our
cooking-pot filled with snow. Three mortal hours and a half
did it take our little spirit stove to melt and boil sufficient
water to mix with our ration cartridges.
At midnight we lay down in a heap on the ground and tried
to shiver ourselves to sleep. We had only been able to carry
up one thin ship's blanket between us, and the cold was con
siderable. During the night the wind rose, and snow fell for
some hours ; the cold made sleep impossible. After fidgeting
incessantly for a couple of hours, the cook, who was sleeping
across our feet, got up and declared his intention of returning
forthwith to the ship. As he would certainly have tumbled
into a crevasse before he had gone one hundred yards, we
used our eloquence to dissuade him, and eventually com
promised matters by allowing him to wedge himself in beside

328 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
us, though we were already tightly packed. It now. became
•difficult even to breathe ; turning round was utterly out of the
question. At 6.30 A.M. I could stand the position no longer.
I sounded the reveille by a sneeze which effectually aroused
my companions.
The weather was precisely the same as the evening before,
thick fog and a slight snowfall. Occasionally we could see
an outline of the foot of the mountain, and our tracks over
the neVe nearly obliterated by fresh snow. The thermometer
registered nine degrees of frost, but it must have been con
siderably colder than this during the night. At 9.30 it was
still snowing hard, but about one o'clock the fog cleared
slightly, and Bottolfsen pluckily volunteered to go back to
the ship for provisions and spirit ; to my surprise the cook
willingly agreed to accompany him. We watched them dis
appear down our tracks until the fog hid them from sight.
Then with a sigh of content Trevor-Battye and I wrapped
ourselves in the blanket and dozed till four P.M. We were
roused by an unusual glow in the tent, and, looking out,
found the sun shining and most of the mountains free from
fog. Scrambling into our boots, we ascended to the highest
point of the ridge on which our camp stood.
The view was very fine. Bands of cloud were rolling
away over the sky, and the sun shone through them. We
could see the whole of yesterday's route, and away down in
the bay a little black speck indicated the position of the
Expres. In front of us rose the black and precipitous face
•of Mount Hedgehog, forming a wall nearly two miles in
length, crested by an almost horizontal arete. Here and
there a few small gensdarmes protruded. The summit of
the mountain rises from the southern end of this arete,
where it joins the western buttress, which ran steeply
down towards our camp, but, before reaching the neve, this
.buttress rises again into an irregular ridge connected with

chap, xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 329
the rib on which we were encamped. This ridge forms the
watershed of the district, and, running round to the NW.,
ends in the little peak on the shore of the bay, which I had
ascended during our stay in Horn Sound. This basin is
occupied by the glacier which we ascended from the bay.
To the south of this ridge the ground falls gradually to a
low swampy tract of raised beach connected with an inden
tation in the coast-line to the south. It is badly delineated
on the chart, and the axis of Mount Hedgehog, which runs
nearly north and south, is placed on the chart running in an
easterly and westerly direction.
After photographing the peak and planning a line of
ascent, I left Trevor-Battye to sketch, and returned to camp
to look for the men who were bringing our supper. I
scanned the glacier in vain, and cursed my stupidity in
allowing them to take down the whole of our sixty-feet
rope, leaving us imprisoned on an island of rock, sur
rounded by neve crevasses, covered with new snow. As
I watched for the men the fog gradually came up,
and, before long, it settled down upon us as thick as
ever. I realised that our brief chance of making the ascent
was gone.
I was musing on the hollowness of life, when my atten
tion was attracted by a moving object on the other side of
the tent. At first I thought it was a bear, but presently dis
covered that it was our men returning from the opposite
direction to that in which I was looking for them. In spite
of my injunctions not to leave our track, they had tried a
short cut, which had landed them in the midst of the maze
of crevasses surrounding camp. Their appearance was de
cidedly ludicrous. Bottolfsen, who had made the acquaint
ance of the interior of five crevasses on his way up, was
plastered with snow to the eyes ; he was hung all over with
an odd assortment of objects — cooking-tins, biscuit-boxes,

33° SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
&c, like the White Knight in "Alice through the Looking-
Glass." These things, he told me, had originally been con
tained in a blanket on his back, but they had strayed
during his temporary visits below ground.
Summoning Trevor-Battye, who arrived shivering with
cold, and with the paints frozen solid on his block, we
set up the tedious operation of boiling snow for supper.
About eleven p.m. we saw that it was hopeless to start that
night, for the wind was rising, and it was snowing heavily, so
we resigned ourselves to fate, and tried to sleep. Presently
the wind increased to a gale ; we had to turn out and lay
big stones round the floor of the tent to keep it from being
blown away bodily.
We looked out at five A.M. ; it was still snowing, and
nothing was visible but a great whiteness. At ten we cooked
some coffee ; the wind, which had moderated somewhat,
again increased to a gale. Bottolfsen cheered us with Arctic
yarns, and we inspected the weather at intervals. At 12.30
we performed our ablutions and had some lunch. The
ablutions were scanty, owing to the absence of water, and
chiefly consisted of a rub with snow — what the French
would call nettoiage a sec. We took stock of our re
maining provisions, not a difficult operation, as they con
sisted of one tin of Irish stew, a ration cartridge, a few
biscuits, chocolate, and sticks of Emergency Food. The sug
gestion was made that, as soon as it cleared a little, we
should start down for the ship ; but I was loath to abandon
the expedition as long as we had food, and stated my inten
tion of sticking to it, and at least of climbing on to the
foot of the mountain and obtaining specimens of the rock.
Accordingly, at eight p.m. we put the remains of our provi
sions in our pockets, wrapped ourselves up in everything we
possessed, and started for the peak, leaving the engineer
buried under the tent, from which we had abstracted our

chap, xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 331
ice-axes. Our last orders to him were that he should begin
melting snow when he heard us shout.
At first we kept up the ridge from our camp-island to the
wide saddle which separated us from the western buttress.
By crossing exactly along the top of the col we avoided a
gaping bergschrund, which circled round the head of the
glacier basin. As the only mountaineer of the party, it fell to
my lot to lead. Desirous of avoiding as much step-cutting
as possible, I kept to the top of the arete, but my companions
did not fancy the rocks, which were smooth and hard, so we
descended to the edge of the snowfield falling from the South
side of the ridge. We kept along this as far as the depression
at the foot of the western buttress, by which I proposed to
ascend. The fog cleared for a moment when we were on the
col and opened a glimpse to the north over the head of Horn
Sound. The sun was very near the horizon, glowing like a
ball of molten metal, while the icebergs in the bay caught
the glint of orange light and flashed it on to the surface of
the water. The whole scene was vignetted in a fog, whose
margin was lit up with a crimson glow, completing a most
exquisite picture. It was the only view we had. During the
rest of the climb we could scarcely see more than a few yards
around. When Trevor-Battye had made a rough sketch we com
menced the ascent of the buttress, skirting always up the
margin of the snowfield, which gradually narrowed to a steep
couloir. Tired of kicking steps in the snow with boots which
were too short for me, I again took to the rocks, but a growl
or two from my companions sent me back to the snow, into
the narrow part of the couloir, where steps became harder
to kick and soon had to be cut. Gradually the surface of the
old snow changed into neve-ice and finally to blue ice. In
some places this was covered with as much as a foot of fresh
snow, which had avalanched from the steep sides of the

332 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
couloir and made step-cutting more difficult. At length we
reached the foot of the final tooth, and with some difficulty
gained a footing on the rocks. These were very smooth and
plastered with ice, whilst the covering of fresh snow obli
terated all hand-holds. After proceeding a short distance
Trevor-Battye declared that he had had enough and pro
posed to await our return. I glanced at Bottolfsen, who said
nought, but looked things unutterable.
Under suitable conditions of weather and snow, half-an-
hour's climbing would probably have taken me to the top, but
the mountain was in no state for solitary climbing, and the
weather was as bad as could be. It was snowing again, and
only a few feet of the base of the tower were visible through
the fog. There was nothing to gain by continuing the ascent,
so I read my aneroid, which gave the height as 4400 feet.
Scoresby gives the height of the mountain as surveyed from
the coast at 4395 feet, and that of the more northerly peak
as 3306 feet, while the chart marks the summit at 4480 feet.
We agreed at the time that the tower rose about 70 or 80
feet above the point where we stopped. I looked at my
watch ; it was just 12.30 A.M.
Turning back, I found my companions had already begun
to descend. When we had returned a short way I re
membered a stick we had brought up to leave as a memento
of our ascent. We had sacrificed one of our few remaining
tent pegs for the purpose, squared it with a knife, and
carved our names on three of the sides, and the date on the
fourth. It was now deposited as safely as possible on the
rocks and the descent continued.
All went well for a time, but the steps gradually became
more difficult to find, so I changed places with Bottolfsen,
who had hitherto been leading down. The position was an
awkward one : Bottolfsen had no axe, but only the broken
fragment of the pole he had brought up. I left him my axe

chap, xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 333
afterwards and tried the pole, and I can only say that his
performance, in coming last down the upper part of the
couloir, was exceedingly creditable. Indeed the whole be
haviour of my two companions was most plucky throughout
the expedition. Neither of them had previously ascended a
snow mountain, and their perseverance under the conditions
in which we found the peak redounded greatly to their
credit. I know that their chief reason for accompanying
me was pure good nature. Not being mountain enthusiasts,
they must have found the ascent tedious and trying in the
extreme. Coming down was not much more rapid work than
ascending, though it was vastly easier for me ; in the end,
however, we reached the snow col a little before five o'clock.
Here the fog was so thick that farther advance was fraught
with considerable risk. The saddle had to be crossed along
the top. Any deviation to one side or the other would
inevitably have landed us in one of the bergschrunds which
swept round the head of each snow-basin, nearly joining on
the saddle. We had to hit off the narrow place between
them. Not a landmark could be seen. The snow which
had fallen during our ascent had completely obliterated our
footsteps. After turning in every direction until we lost our
bearings, we had to follow our tracks back to the rocks. No
other resource being left, we set our compass in the general
direction of Bastion Ridge, and plunged into the unknown.
After some minutes of considerable anxiety, expecting at
each step to plunge headlong through the lip of a berg
schrund, I noticed marks on the snow at my feet ; stooping
down to examine them I found that I was walking directly
in our former tracks. Jodelling with all our might to the
imprisoned engineer, we hurried down . Bastion Ridge, and
at 5.20 A.M. were under the friendly shelter of the tent.
Our Emergency Food, which we had been too miserable

334 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
to consume on the peak, was eaten and washed down with
unsweetened coffee. Just as we had finished, Trevor-Battye,
with an expression of intense surprise, drew from his pocket
a fragment of the rind of an old Dutch cheese which he had
bought on the ship in Advent Bay. This he generously
divided between us, and then our thoughts turned to a
smoke, but our tobacco was finished, and we had only one
match left. Raking up the ashes in our pipes we struck
our last lucifer in breathless silence and solemnly handed
it round. After four hours' sleep we started down to the coast. The
fog had lifted slightly, and we had no difficulty in finding our
way to the boat. We learned that the captain had almost
given us up in despair, and that the steamer, which we had
hoped to catch on its way to Norway, had sailed two days
before, after waiting for five hours in the bay. As our pro
visions were practically exhausted, there was no use in re
maining where we were. While they were getting up steam,
we made a short boat expedition up the bay, then set out to
cross the three hundred miles of Arctic Sea which separated
us from Tromso and civilisation.
The voyage was decidedly lively, though not really rough.
Our little launch was swept by wave after wave, and we had
frequently to slacken to half-speed to avoid diving underneath
altogether. Matters in our little cabin reached a climax of
discomfort when the water, which was rushing about on deck,
poured down the companion in one stupendous leap (as they
say in the advertisements of waterfalls), on to our cabin floor,
converting the place into a swimming-bath.
The boat was rolling heavily at the time. Before we could
oust the unwelcome intruder, an avalanche of miscellaneous
commodities shot over into the water from the shelf above.
At the same moment a table, on whose equilibrium we had
hitherto implicitly relied, distributed its contents impartially

chap, xxiv MOUNT HEDGEHOG 335
into the bath. The collection swimming about was decidedly
mixed — birds, biscuit-tins, bread, butter, boots, note-books,
and onions, jostled each other at every lurch ; while a
tumbler of cod-liver oil, which Trevor-Battye had brought
as a specific against colds, floated in amber globules on the
surface of the water. In fishing the things out I came
across my watch, which had already lost its glass during the
step-cutting on the previous day. Its immersion in sea-water

^v.yy^rjyy/i..^:.^^^^ 

THE "WINDWARD" AND THE " FRAM " AT TROMSO.

completely finished it ; nothing would induce it to go
another tick. In his book on Africa, Dr. Gregory speaks of
the treatment he recommends for watches that refuse to
go : he oils them, pats them, and finally sings hymns over
them. Mine had been thoroughly soaked in cod-liver oil ;
I patted it vigorously ; but, as Dr. Gregory was not present
to sing hymns over it, the charm failed to work. After this
we barricaded the door with our casks and sacks of coal,

336 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxiv
and so after three and a half days at sea we made Tromso
harbour. Thus ended rather an adventurous expedition, which
brought us back, after our enforced starvation, with the best
appetites that we had ever enjoyed, enabling us to do ample
justice to the banquet, on the evening of our arrival, given
to Dr. Nansen, who had just returned in safety from his
marvellous voyage.

CHAPTER XXV
SPITSBERGEN AS A SUMMER RESORT
THE relative accessibility of Spitsbergen rendered it
certain to become, sooner or later, the goal of
summer tourists. Holiday - makers are incited to travel
by a variety of motives. Curiosity moves some ; mere
fatuous love of change operates on others ; whilst I fear
that the only reason for which many leave their homes is
to be able to boast on their return that they have visited
such and such places beyond the range of their friends.
The ardent lover of Nature is impelled to become ac
quainted with all the moods of his great mistress. It is
his joy to behold her in sunshine as in storm, in the
glory of fertility as in the majesty of the desert; to
pursue her into the fastnesses of the mountains or the
breadth of the plains ; to know her beneath her mantle
of snow and ice, as well as in all her gorgeous pageantry
of tropical exuberance. For him the mystery of Polar
snows and the summer-long day must have a strong fascina
tion. Knowing that Nature never and nowhere "did betray
the heart that loves her," he will feel confident that there
is a beauty of the Arctic regions as well worth knowing as
that of any other part of this great terrestrial ball.
The time, therefore, was sure to come when it would
occur to some caterer for the public entertainment that
tourist steamers to Spitsbergen would pay. The pioneer in
this enterprise was Captain W. Bade, formerly an officer
in the German Navy. He took part in the North-German
337 Y

338 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxv
Polar expedition of 1869, when the ship to which he was
attached was smashed in the ice, and her crew lived for
237 days on an ice-floe, drifting down the east coast of
Greenland. Captain Bade increased his Arctic experience
by various whaling expeditions, and in 1891 he brought up
a party of Wiirtemberg tourists to Spitsbergen. The ex
periment was so successful that he has repeated it every
year since, on a continually increasing scale. In 1893
the Hamburg-American Company's great steamer Columbia
brought a cargo of visitors to Advent Bay. In 1894 the
Orient Company's steamer Lusitania followed her example,
and others have succeeded.
Finally, in 1896, Spitsbergen may be said to have been
formally annexed by the ubiquitous tripper ; for, not
only did the enterprising Vesteraalen Steamboat Company
institute a weekly service of steamers running between
Hammerfest and Advent Bay during the six summer-holiday
weeks, but they were even bold enough to erect, on the
site of an old Norwegian hut on Advent Point, a small
wooden inn. I understand that in 1897 they propose to
offer even greater facilities. In addition to the weekly
steamer and the inn, they will have in Spitsbergen waters
two small, properly built wooden steamers, to carry visitors
to various points of interest ; whilst the whole service will
be under the direction of Captain Sverdrup, Nansen's well-
known companion in Greenland and across the Polar
Ocean.1 To the ordinary traveller Spitsbergen cannot fail to
afford interesting experiences. If he goes up fairly early
in the year he will probably meet with drift-ice on the
sea between Bear Island and the South Cape or Point
1 Persons desirous of information about this matter should communicate with
the manager of the Vesteraalen Steamship Company, Mr. With, Stokmarknaes,
Lofoten.

chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 339
Lookout. Presently the famous Hedgehog Mount or
Hornsunds Tind will come in view, towering above all
neighbouring hills, and producing the impression of a giant
mountain. More or less of the west coast will next be
seen, with glaciers coming down from the inland ice to the
margin of the sea. He will look into Horn Sound, and
will in all probability be taken into Bell Sound, once the
harbour of the English whalers. Schoonhoven (improperly
but commonly called Recherche Bay) will doubtless be
visited. There Arctic glaciers can be investigated close at
hand, and even walked upon without difficulty. It was not
far from this bay that, in 1630-31, a party of English
whalers spent the winter in the blubber-boiling hut, having
been accidentally left behind. They were the first men
who ever lived through a whole year in Spitsbergen ; the
account of their adventures made a great sensation in its
time and is still worth reading. After passing Bell Sound,
the mouth of Ice Fjord is quickly reached. Beautiful,
indeed, and highly characteristic is the scene on entering,
with the fine mountains on either hand, the great glaciers
coming down from the north, and the strange table-hills
stretching away to the south. Along the front of these
the steamer passes for a few hours before rounding into
Advent Bay.
Of course, in Spitsbergen, as in Europe, much of the
pleasure of travel depends upon the weather. The chances
of sunshine at' any given hour of the twenty-four in any
day of July appear to be about even. In August the sky
is more frequently overcast, in September yet more fre
quently. But the interest, as distinguished from the charm,
of Arctic travel does not depend upon weather. Fogs and
low-lying clouds are characteristic of the Arctic regions, and
give rise to many most beautiful effects. The temperature
on fine, clear, still days is like that of a warm English

34° SPITSBERGEN chap, xxv
spring, but such days are not, of course, a majority. Usually
the weather is cold, and warm clothing is a necessity,
especially on board ship. Ordinary winter clothes suf
fice ; but a good fur-lined overcoat will be found a
blessing. Very convenient fur-lined pea-jackets, with holes
in front for the hands, are sold cheaply at Bergen and
Trondhjem. Advent Bay is not a specially interesting centre for
Spitsbergen. The energetic traveller will, however, be able
to find congenial employment in the immediate neighbour
hood. He can climb Mount Nordenskjold, if there is a
chance of a view, and thence look abroad over the whole
interior of the island. A very vigorous walker might even
make the still more profitable ascent of Fox Peak in an
eighteen hours' walk. The hills on the west side of the
bay have never been ascended, and there is an important
valley leading into the midst of them and debouching on
Ice Fjord just outside the entrance to Advent Bay, which
has never been explored. Ordinary visitors, however, will
do best to take advantage of one of the little steamers and
make an excursion round Ice Fjord to Sassen Bay, Temple
Mountain, Klaas Billen Bay, and Cape Thordsen. The
ascent of any hill in these directions is better worth while
than an ascent from Advent Point.
The most interesting part of Spitsbergen for a rapid
view is, however, not Ice Fjord, but the west coast and
bays north of it. Here the mountains are formed of the
hardest and most ancient rocks ; their forms are precipi
tous, and they are adorned with needle-pointed crests and
summits, resembling the Aiguilles of Chamonix. Moreover,
here glaciers are more numerous and grand than farther
south. An expedition to the north-west corner of the
island is therefore an essential part of any well-conceived
visit to Spitsbergen, however brief. Historically, too, this

chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 341
is the most interesting part of these seas, for the bays and
sounds at the north-west were the centre of the whaling
industry in its flourishing days in the seventeenth century.
Every point is the scene of some tragic event, some ship
wreck or disastrous wintering.
From the mouth of Ice Fjord the northward way for
large steamers lies outside Prince Charles's Foreland, a long
partly submerged range of mountains of fine form, which
have never been climbed, nor even properly mapped.
Smaller boats can go up the more interesting narrow
channel between these mountains and the mainland, peer
ing into various secluded bays as they pass, and perhaps
even looking into the beautiful English Bay, so well de-
cribed by Lord Dufferin in " Letters from High Latitudes."
Beyond the Foreland come the seven great glaciers or
" Seven Icebergs," flowing down side by side from the
inland ice to the sea. Then follows the " Pearl of Arctic
Scenery," Magdalena Bay, alone worth a journey to be
hold. The narrow bay is enclosed by precipitous peaks
and draped with glaciers. A little low promontory on its
south shore contains the ruins of numerous graves. It
was the English burying-place in whaling days. Beyond
this bay are the craggy and snow - decked Danes and
Amsterdam Islands, which shelter Dutch Bay from the
western ocean. By either of two narrow entries the large
secluded harbour may be gained, where the main body of
the whaling fleet used to ride, and on whose shore was
planted the Dutch summer settlement, Smeerenburg, of
which scarcely a brick remains. Here the wildness of the
scenery culminates, the rocks are all splintered by frost,
snow frequently lies deep by the very margin of the sea
even at midsummer, whilst, in many years, the ice-pack of
the Arctic Ocean reaches down to the immediate neighbour
hood, so that its nature and expansion may be estimated

342 SPITSBERGEN chap xxv
by any one who will row to some of the islands of Fair
Haven (Cloven Cliff or the Outer Norway for choice) and
scramble to the top.
Farther than this to east or north it is not likely that
tourist steamers will often go, nor is it advisable that
persons with home engagements should risk the adventure
of a region in which it is always possible to be entrapped
by the ice. All the bays and fjords of the west coast, how
ever, may be visited in safety by a traveller having an extra
week or two at his command, if the company should make
needful provision of small excursion steamers, as, I am in
formed, they intend to do. A fair specimen of the Arctic
world is thus thrown open to every intelligent person, and
the horizon of every one's experience is therebv potentially
widened. The success of the Vesteraalen Company's experiment, of
course, depends upon the popular support it receives at
the hands of the touring public. The risk and the pecu
niary profit is their affair. But there is another and a larger
profit which the success of this venture will bring to science,
and it is in the interest of this profit to science that I am
doing what I can to further the purelv commercial interests
of the Company. Before the development of Switzerland
as a holiday resort the Alps were visited by men of science ;
but no one will assert that the minute knowledge we
now possess of the great Alpine range would have been
attained if the playground of Europe had been located else
where. Scientific men have availed themselves of the
facilities afforded to tourists, and tourists in their turn, being
for the most part persons above the average in intelligence,
have created a demand for the information which scientific
men could supply. Thus the Alps have been surveyed as
no other range of mountains in the world has been surveyed,

chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 343
and a public has been provided to take an interest in Alpine
science, which but for them would scarcely have come into
being. The same thing will happen in Spitsbergen if
summer travellers can be persuaded to frequent it. A
portion of Arctic land will be minutely studied and exactly
surveyed, its changes watched and recorded from year to
year, its phenomena patiently investigated, and its record
maintained. The interior of Spitsbergen is an almost unknown region.
It is now to be brought within ten days of London, and
opened for investigation to any person with a six weeks'
holiday at command. The glaciers are unmapped, the peaks
unclimbed, the valleys, for the most part, untraversed, the
ice-sheet absolutely unexplored. Come, then, all ye "who
live in houses and go to offices," and taste the delights of
the unknown ! Your chance is brief, for in a few years
the hills of Spitsbergen will be even as the Alps, where there
is no more a virgin peak for a man to conquer. In the
remainder of this chapter I propose to indicate some of the
work that awaits the man of adventure, and how he should
be equipped to undertake it. The question of equipment
shall be considered first.
A traveller who would explore the interior of Spits
bergen and climb its mountains must be prepared to carry
all his equipment on his own back, or the backs of other
members of his party. Hence everything taken must be as
light as possible. Thin Willesden drill "Mummery" tents
are best, with the ice - axes used for tent - poles. There
should be one of these tents for every two, or at the out
side three members of the party. For sleeping-bags the
Norwegian reindeer -skin sacks, though most comfortable,
are far too heavy and bulky. The traveller must be con
tent with bags made of eider-down quilt. One kilo of

344 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxv
eider-down will suffice for a bag. The down may be
purchased for about thirty kroner a kilo, through Mr.
Mack of Tromso. It should be made up in England in
a cover of woollen sateen of a kind you can get at the
Army and Navy Stores, and doubtless elsewhere. It pays
to carry a rifle and a few cartridges, for reindeer can
generally be procured ; but the rifle should not be heavier
than can be helped. A Paradox is the best kind to take.
A change of foot-gear is necessary, for boots and stockings
will be wet through daily. A piece of thin rubber-sheeting
should form part of each man's pack ; it will serve to
keep the sleeping-bag dry on the march, and for floor to
the tent in camp. For food you must carry biscuits, con
centrated soups and stews,1 brick-tea, and the like. When
reindeer are not likely to be forthcoming, suitable ration
cartridges must be taken, such as those manufactured by
the Bovril Company ; they are filling, if not exactly appe
tising. No good light cooking apparatus exists. The best
way is to carry an aluminium saucepan, and to boil it by
burning beneath it pure spirits of wine in a small open
pan or tray about three inches wide. If this pan be put on
the bottom of an empty biscuit tin with some stones round
it to support the saucepan, the tin will keep off the wind,
and form a more efficient cooking apparatus than the bulky
and cumbersome affairs made for travellers by people who
have never been away from a town. With such an equip
ment as this it will be easy to make expeditions of four
or five days' duration from the coast, where the party should
have a whale-boat more elaborately stored with comforts.
With this boat they can row or sail from one base to
another, and the whole western part of the island, and,
1 The Portable Food Company's consolidated stews in tin cylinders are the
best things of the kind known to me.

chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 345
in favourable seasons, much of the north, will be accessible
to them. Those who would undertake longer and more venture
some journeys over the great sheets of inland ice must
equip themselves with a supply of Buckingham's Alpine Club
rope, and with one or more suitable Nansen or other sledges.
They will also do well to learn to shuffle about on ski.
Not before the middle of July is the snow so far melted as
to make such a journey pleasant ; but in August, and even
the first part of September, rapid progress can be made,
without snow-shoes or ski, over the hard surface, and great
distances covered with little labour. By means of a sledge,
heavier equipment may be taken, and consequently sup
plies for a longer absence from any base. Arrangements
could doubtless be easily made at Advent Bay for a small
steamer to meet the party at particular places and times.
Of this, however, it is as yet too soon to speak. For the
present it will be best for any party to provide themselves
with a whale-boat, and one or two Norwegian seamen to
help them with it and to assist in carrying loads inland.
Such men can be hired through the Vesteraalen Company
or through Mr. Mack or Mr. Johannes Giaever of Tromso.
A rigid and detailed agreement should be made with them
as to the loads they are to carry, their own equipment, their
food, &c. A whale-boat can be hired through the same
persons or through the Military Equipment Stores (7 Water
loo Place, London, S.W.), from whom Nansen sledges, ski,
Mummery tents, and so forth can be bought. Fur goods
are best purchased from Mr. J. N. Bruun of Trondhjem, who
sells also the useful fur-lined pea-jackets above referred to.
Silver & Company of Cornhill supply all sorts of travellers'
requisites, which I have always found well and strongly
made. Edgington of London Bridge makes excellent tents.

346

SPITSBERGEN chap, xxv

Good equipment can also be bought at the Army and Navy
Stores ; but many things may be bought in Norway as well
as in London, and for a less price. Very thick woollen
clothes and underclothes should of course be taken, though
Spitsbergen affords little opportunity for changing.
We come now to consider what opportunities for explora
tion Spitsbergen offers to a summer visitor. The country
may be divided and considered under four categories— the

INLAND ICE-SHEET OF NEW FRIESLAND FROM HINLOOPEN STRAIT.

coasts, the mountains, the inland ice-sheets, and the snow-
free valleys. The coasts have all been explored, and nothing
remains to be done with them except by really expert sur
veyors and experienced men of science. The coast mountains,
however, are little known, and only the easy ones have been
climbed. I hope next year to publish a full account of what
has been done in Spitsbergen in the way of mountaineering,
and then any one can see for himself what remains to be
done. The best climbing is to be found near the sea along

chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 347
all the west coast north of Ice Fjord. The Foreland Moun
tains are probably as high as any in this region, and one of
them may even be higher than Hedgehog Mountain. They
are all unclimbed, and even unmapped, save in the crudest
manner. In the neighbourhood of Magdalena Bay there
is also excellent climbing of steep and difficult rocks to be
found. There are plenty of hills farther east, approachable
from the fjords ; but they are, I believe, in no case difficult,
owing to the nature of the materials of which they consist.
The exploration of the snow-free valleys is scarcely
begun. Any one who would devote a season to mapping
and traversing the area westward of Advent Bay, between
Ice Fjord, Bell Sound, and the sea, would be doing excellent
work, for the region is most interesting both to geologists
and physical geographers. There is a large snow-free area
of uncertain breadth extending from Ekman Bay (of North
Fjord) eastward to Klaas Billen Bay, and from Ice Fjord
northward to Wijde Bay and along its west shore. Much
good work might be done here from the moving base of a
boat, especially rather late in the season in years when
Dickson Bay is clear of ice. The third more or less
snow-free region in which much remains to be discovered
is that between the wrongly-named Van Keulen Bay (it
should be called Sardam or Michel Rynier Bay, I believe)
and the southern limit of the area explored by us. The
most interesting part of this region is that penetrated by
the deep valleys at the head of the two branches of Low
Sound (misnamed Van Mijen on the chart). By either of
these valleys, and especially by the southern, a rush might
be made to the east coast.
The inland ice-sheets may be taken piecemeal. From
Horn Sund and the head of Van Keulen Bay the whole
southern sheet can be explored ; but Van Keulen is seldom

348 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxv
open till late in the season. The sheet north of the
Sassendal can be entered by way of the Post Glacier in
Temple Bay, or the Nordenskjold Glacier at the north-east
angle of Klaas Billen Bay. The Nordenskjold Glacier is
also the natural point of departure for the great ice-sheet
stretching away north and north-east. There is a great
glacier valley debouching on Hinloopen Strait almost op
posite Cape Torell, which it would be most interesting to
descend. The best glacial area of all to be explored in a
short summer expedition is that between Kings Bay, the
sea, and Ice Fjord, for it is traversed by splendid rivers of
ice from south-east to north-west, and it contains a number
of fine peaks which might be climbed. At the head of
Cross Bay there is said to be a long snowy valley that
runs northward ; this and all the snowy and mountainous
area north and east is full of opportunity for interesting
discoveries. In half-a-dozen summer holidays of six weeks' duration
or thereabouts, an active party of men, familiar with
ice-craft, and possessing such rudimentary knowledge of
surveying as may be learnt from Mr. Coles at the Royal
Geographical Society (i Savile Row) in a few hours of study,
might fill in the main outlines of the as yet blank interior
of Spitsbergen, to their own great enjoyment and the profit
of geography. The whole country is intensely interesting
from a scientific point of view, because of the rapidity
with which its surface is being modelled into such forms
as were impressed in glacial times on the now temperate
and inhabited parts of Northern Europe. For this reason
we need accurate and detailed information about the nature
of the interior of Spitsbergen, as well as records from year
to year of the changes that occur in it, so that we may be
able to deduce the rate at which valleys eat their way

Fold out

chap, xxv A SUMMER RESORT 349
back, mountains are cut out of table-lands, bays are filled
up, and so forth. Here, then, is a chance for competent
men to enjoy holidays of an active, health-giving, and novel
sort, and at the same time to perform good and fruitful
service to science.

FARLWEl.I.

APPENDIX

THE NOMENCLATURE OF SPITSBERGEN

SPITSBERGEN was discovered and named by the Dutch
i in 1596. They thought it might be part of Greenland.
The name Spitsbergen was only given to the land with the
pointed peaks, and does not belong to the whole Archipelago.
North-East-Land, Barendsz Land, and Edge Land are not
parts of Spitsbergen. The English used to call Spitsbergen
Greenland, till a relatively recent date ; the same name is also
found, perhaps more frequently than Spitsbergen, in foreign
authors. Barendsz only named two points on Spitsbergen —
Vogelhoeck (the N. point of the Foreland) and Keerwyk (the
N. end of Foreland Sound). The other three names on his
map — Gebroocken Land (the islands at the NW. angle),
Grooten Inwyck (Ice Fjord), and Inwyck (Bell Sound) — are
descriptions rather than names.
The next visitor to Spitsbergen was the English skipper
Hudson (1607), who called the island New Land, or King
James his New Land. He had Barendsz' map with him,
and did not attempt to change the Dutch names, but he
added a few of his own — Collins Cape (probably the
Hakluyt Headland of to-day), Hakluyt's Headland (probably
the N. cape of North-East-Land), Whales Bay (?), and a few
more. Other English skippers gave other names to new
points. Then came Dutch, German, and French whalers and
added names of their own, changing the rightful designations,

352 SPITSBERGEN
and often misapplying old names, so that the same name
is found in different charts applied to different points, and
different names to the same point. Finally the Norwegian
skippers and the scientific explorers of the present century
have created further confusion, so that now the nomencla
ture of this region is in a condition of astonishing con
fusion. I have, therefore, made a careful study of all the
old MS. and other charts to which it has been possible for
me to obtain access, with a view to discovering what was
the original designation of each point — a matter of no little
importance and interest, seeing how much local history is
fossilised in names. My researches are far from complete.
The present chapter is a mere sketch, which will doubtless
need revision hereafter. I propose to start at the south
Cape, and work up the west coast of Spitsbergen and
round the whole island, taking the various named points in
geographical succession. I shall then similarly treat the
neighbouring islands. The references are to the various
authorities named at the close of the chapter. I have not
included designations from charts or books later than
Scoresby (1820). References to Martens are to the following
book : — F. Martens, Spitsbergische Reisebeschreibung, Hamburg,
1675 (English translation, Hakluyt Society, 1855).
Ronde Klip (Middelhoven, 1634).— The island off the S. Cape.
Point Look-Out. — So named in Hessel Gerritsz (1613). In Dutch it is
Kaap de Kyckuyt or Uyt Kyk (passim) ; Generaels hoeck (Joris,
1614). Premiere pointe (Cash, 1629); Whale's Back (Van Keulen,
1689).
Mount Hedgehog. — This is the name given in Purchas to a prominent
peak at the south end of the island, which can be none other than
the Horn Sunds Tind of the Norwegians. There is only one
mountain in this part, visible from both coasts, and from far to
the south, which by far overtops all neighbouring peaks. It is
called Mount Edge in Kdge's chart (1625); misprinted Mound
Egle, and misplaced by Van Keulen (1689); Gerritsz (1613) calls

APPENDIX 353
it Moscovit Mont, but this is probably the peak on the E. coast so
named in Edge's chart, which appears as Mount Hedgehog in
modern maps. Scoresby is the first authority I have yet found
for the name Horn Mount.
Horn Sound. — Named by Hudson (1607). The name is confused into
" Horv Sond or Hoorn Sond" (G. and R., 1707) ; and into Horizond
Bay (Zorgdrager).
Dun Islands. — These appear to be the Lammas I. of Hondius (1611).
Rheeland (Roebuckland), named first in Van Keulen (1689).
Slaadberg (G. and R., 1707), a hill between Schoonhoven and Dunder
Bay.
Bell Point. — The promontory S. of Bell Sound, so named in Gerritsz
(1613) and ever since.
Bell Sound. — The Inwyck of Barendsz. The name first appears in
Joris (1614). It is the designation of the whole group of sounds
or merely of the mouth outside the junction of the inner bays.
Sometimes it is called Clock (Klok) Bay or Rivier (first by Blaeu
1664). The nomenclature of the different branches of this Sound
is the most confused in the whole island. It divides into three
branches, (a) Schoonhoven (Recherche Bay) which goes S. ; (b)
Sardam Bay (Van Keulen) which goes SE. ; and (c) Low Sound
(Van Mijen), which goes NE. The difficulty of finding the correct
nomenclature arises from the fact that many of the early charts
depict four branches, the fourth being a duplication of Sardam
Bay as a branch of Schoonhoven. Taking the branches in order
they are : —
Schoonhoven. — -So first named in Gerritsz (16 13), and continuously there
after (or in English Fair Haven, Clean Bay, or merely Bell Sound).
It was the great place of assembly. for the whaling fleet about to
return home, during two centuries. The alteration of this name
to Recherche Bay by the French Expedition, which spent eleven
days there in 1838, was a most unwarrantable mutilation of
history.
Rheen Eylandt (Blaeu, 1664). — An island at the head of Schoon
hoven.
Sardam Bay (Guerard, 1628). — Described in Gerritsz (161 3) as Baye
des Franchoys. The name Michel Rinders Rivier also appears in
Guerard in connection with this bay, so that one name or the other
may apply to some minor bay within the larger. The name of
Van Keulen in connection with these waters first appears as Van
Z

354 SPITSBERGEN
Keulens Baaytfe (G. and R., 1707) or little bay, evidently applying,
not to the whole Sound, but to some sheltered anchorage, probably
the enclosed inlet at the extremity; Keilhau (1827) calls this
Mittel-fjord.
English Tent (Plaats van't Engelshuysfe, G. and R. 1707). — Situated
either on or just within the Pt. Ahlstrand of the chart.
Point Partition (Gerritsz, 16 13). — Between Sardam and Low Sounds.
Low Sound (Gerritsz, 1613). — The original English name. R. de
Kloeck, or Klok Bay or Rivier appears first in Guerard (1628), and
becomes the regular Dutch name (except in Blaeu's text). In
some of the preceding chapters I have wrongly used the name
Klok Bay for Low Sound. It is wrongly called Finder's Bay in
some Dutch charts (Commelin, Van Keulen). Recently it has
been generally known as Van Mijen Bay, but this is the mutilated
name of a neighbouring anchorage.
Coude Herberch (Commelin, 1624). — A name frequently given in old
Dutch charts to some anchorage near the head of Low Sound.
Ondiepe Rivier (Blaeu, 1664). — Described by G. and R. (1707) as
" Een drooge Fioerd vol Mouras dar sig veel Rheenen outhouden,
genaamt Ondiepe Rivier." Drooge Riv. (Zorgdrager), Dry Fiord
(Scoresby). The Norwegian reindeer hunters call it Stordal.
Willem van Muyden's Haven. — A small bay in the N. coast of Bell
Sound, west of Axel Island. It was named after the first Dutch
interloping skipper who sailed for the Spitsbergen whaling. The
bay is called Bottle Cove by Pellham ("God's Power," &c, 1631),
Fair Haven by Scoresby.
Lowsoundness (cape N. of Bell Sound). — So named in Gerritsz (1613).
Lowenesse (Edge, 1625) was probably the original name, and Low
Sound was named from it.
Lisetts Islands. — Named in Edge (1625) and passim till Scoresby
(Lissetts). They were placed off the coast between Bell Sound
and Ice Sound, where no islands are now marked.
Ice Sound (the Grooten Inwyck of Barentsz). — First named in Gerritsz
(16 1 3). Hudson (translating Barendsz) wrote of it as "the great
Indraught," or perhaps "the Sack." It is named Baye des Pa no les
in Cash (1629). Sometimes it is wrongly called Groenhaven
(Blaeu, 1664).
Russe Keglen (Norwegian name). — The valley between Green Harbour
and the W. coast.
Green Harbour (Gerritsz, 1613). — A name that has never been changed.

APPENDIX 355
Coles Bay (Pellham, 1631). — Of late years generally but wrongly called
Coal Bay.
Advent Bay. — A modern name. The true old name was Klaas Billen
Bay (G. and R. 1707), but this name has been transplanted across
the Sound, and any attempt to alter it now would lead to hopeless
confusion.
Sassen or Sassele Bay (G. and R. 1707). — Zorgdrager marks Sassen Bay
as the name of the whole inner part of Ice Sound.
Gips Hook was called V Middelland by the Dutch.
Safe (Behouden) Haven (Gerritsz, 161 3). — A name that has seldom been
confused. This bay was called Niches Cove by Edge (1625).
Osborne's Inlet (Gerritsz, 1613). — It is named S.Jans Bay by Middel-
hoven (1634) and all later cartographers.
Cove Comfortlesse (Gerritsz, 16 13). — The English Bay of all later writers.
Prince Charles Foreland or Kijn Island (Gerritsz, 161 3). — Generally
named the Foreland 'in old charts. '2 lang Ey Ian dt (Blaeu, 1664).
Saddle Point. — The S. point of the Foreland. It is possible that when
first seen, the hill at the S. end of the Foreland was an island
separated from the rest. Even now it has that appearance except
from close at hand, when the low intervening land appears. There
are two names — Black Point (Gerritsz, 161 3), Kyn's Cape, Kianas
(Goos, 1666), or Kynnae (Commelin, 1642), applied to this South
Cape or Zuydhoeck (Goos, 1666); but, of these names, the former
at any rate belonged properly to a point on the main mass of the
island.
Saal Berg (G and R. 1707).— The hill behind Saddle Point.
Black Point (Swartenhoeck) (Gerritsz, 1613). — The point at the S. end
of the main hill-range of the Foreland. It is called also Middle
Hook by Scoresby.
Persch Riff. — A shoal perhaps represented by the problematical Goshawk
Rock of the chart. Just S. of it there is written on G. and R.
(1707), "Hier begint 't Gobergti of de Zuyd Hook."
Cape Siettoe (Colom, 1648). — A point on the W. coast of the Foreland,
N. of Black Point.
Cape Cold. — Named in Gerritsz (1613), perhaps the same as Cape
Siettoe.
Vogelhoeck (Barendsz, 1596). — The N. point of the Foreland. It was
called Faire Foreland by the first English skippers, and sometimes
the North Hook.
Pieter Winter's Baaytje (G. and R., 1707). — A bay in the E. coast of

356 SPITSBERGEN
the Foreland near its S. end. A creek in the N. shore of this
bay is called Zeehonde Bay by Zorgdrager and others.
The Barr (Edge, 1625), or Z Riff (G. and R., 1707).— The shoal that
nearly joins the Foreland to Spitsbergen. Here Barendsz, coming
from the N., had to turn back.
Foreland Sound (Van Keulen, 1689).— Between the Foreland and
Spitsbergen. The part of this, N. of the Barr, was called by
Barendsz Keerwyk ; by the early English whalers, Sir Thomas
Smith's Sound (Joris, 16 14); by Scoresby, Bay of Birds. Zorg
drager writes of Foreland Sound, under the name Hinter Fore
land.
Qiiade or Kwaade Hoek (Van Keulen, 1689). — The low spit S. of
Kings Bay.
Kings Bay (Koninks Bay, G. and R., 1707). — Has had a great many
names. It was called Dere Sound by Gerritsz (1613), a name
given by Scoresby to the NE. harbour of Kings Bay. Other
names are Pt. des Gars (Guerard, 1628), Kar Soudt (Middel-
hoven, 1634, and others), English Bay (Cash, 1629, Zorgdrager
and others).
Three Crowns. — Marked but not named by G. and R. (1707).
Cross Bay or Road (Edge, 1625), called Closse Sound m Gerritsz, but
this may be a misprint. The name has been constantly em
ployed.
Mitre Cape (Scoresby) or Cape Mitra, apparently not an old name.
The Seven Icebergs. — So named in Zorgdrager.
Hamburger Bay (G. and R., 1707). — Called .S. Jans Bay by Zorgdrager.
Little Basque Bay (Guerard, 1628). — A small bay between Hamburger
Bay and Magdalena Bay, not marked on the Admiralty chart.
It is named Port louis, ou Refuge Francois in Cash (1629).
Magdalena Hook (G. and R., 1707). — The point S. of the entrance to
Magdalena Bay, named Whale's Back on the Chart.
Magdalena Bay (Joris, 16 14). — This may be the Teeth Bay of Barendsz'
log. Scoresby names the SE. harbour within the bay, John
Duncan's Bight.
Knottie Point (Gerritsz, 16 13). — The point between Magdalena Bay
and South Gat.
Third or Nieiv Makkelyk Oud. — This is marked on the S. coast of
the S. Gat by Zorgdrager and G. and R. (1707). The latter also
here marks Ian Donker 't Varken Sonder heosf.
South Gat (Blaeu, 1664). — It is also called English Bay by Zorgdrager

APPENDIX 357
and many more, but the true position of this English Bay was
really at the SE. corner of Dutch Bay.
Danes Island (Goos, 1666, and all later cartographers). — Its SW. point
was called Engelsche Uyt Kyck by the Dutch (passim). The bay
in its W. coast is marked on the Cash map (1629) Port St. Pierre
apelle par les danois Copcnhavre bale. Its common name was
Robbe (Kobbe) Bay (Middelhoven, 1634), or Danes Bay (Zorg
drager). The small bay in the N. coast of this island is known as
Pike's Bay, since Mr. Arnold Pike built a house there apparently
on the site of the old Kokery of Harlingen (wrongly called
Haarlem by Martens), behind which was ''the running water"
of Martens (Vars water of G. and R., 1707).
Danes Gat. — Perhaps oftener called Middelgadt (Middelhoven, 1634),
by the Dutch, and frequently South Bay (Zorgdrager) with refer
ence to Smeerenburg. Dodmans Eyland was at the E: end of
Danes Gat. Zorgdrager marks Zetje Fau in or about Danes Gat,
but I know not to what the name refers.
Amsterdam Island (Blaeu, 1664). — The chief hill on this island is
named the Beehive (Martens). The north point, now called
Hakluyt s Headland, was the Kwaade or Devil's Hook of the
Dutch, and was probably the Collins Cape of Hudson (misprinted
Colnis by Hondius, 16 11). In Gerritsz this point is named Ysse
Caep (1613). A small island off the point was named Devil's
Island (Van Keulen), or Bikorf (Zorgdrager), and near it was the
North Bank (Zorgdrager). On the flat SE. spit of Amsterdam
Island was situated Smeerenburg, with five principal tents, cook
eries, or settlements, named, in order from N. to S., Amsterdam,
Middelburg, the Danes, Delft, and Hoorn.
Dutch or Mauritius Bay (Joris, 1614). — The name of the chief harbour
in Spitsbergen, between the mainland and the Amsterdam and
Danes Islands. It is the Beerhaven of Commelin (1642), and the
South Haven of Martens. Its N. entrance was called North Gat
(Blaeu, 1664). In its E. coast were reckoned to be three bays
(Van Keulen, 1689): English or South Bay at the SE. angle;
Beere Bay, farther N. ; and Slaad Bay, still farther N. Ys hoek
separated Beere Bay from Slaad Bay. Zorgdrager and G. and R.,
(1707) mark a river (Zuyd Bay Rivier), rising from a lake in the
mountains to the S., and flowing into English Bay. This river
and the minor bays seem to have been altered or filled up by
glacial changes and encroachments. Zorgdrager marks a Makkelky

358 SPITSBERGEN
Oud on the E. shore of the bay, as well as a point named Wage
Padt.
Om den Oost (Zorgdrager). — A name given by the Dutch to the N.
coast, and the sea off it.
Large Point (Blaeu, 1664). — The Foul Poi?it of the Admiralty Chart.
Fair Haven (Gerritsz, 16 13). — The harbour enclosed between Vogel
sang, Cloven Cliff, the Norways, and the mainland. It was also
named Hollantsche Haven (Joris, 1614); North Haven (Martens);
Som'er Bay and Bay met de Eylanden (Blaeu, 1664).
Vogelsang (the old Dutch name). — Also named Cape Barren by Edge
(1625), and Rotganse Eyl. by Blaeu (1664).
Cloven Cliff (old Dutch name). — The Saddle Island of Edge (1625);
De Reus or Giant of Joris (16 14); Klip met de Kloff of Van
Keulen (1689).
Outer Norway Island. — This is the Beare Island oi Edge (1625); the
Gansen Eyland of Van Keulen (1689) and others : and the Half-
Norwegeu of Zorgdrager.
Inner Norway Island was called Zeeusche Uytkrk by Van Keulen and
Zorgdrager. A shoal off Flat Hook is named by Zorgdrager Rift
van de Uytkyk.
Birds Bay, the Foul Bay of the chart, but this name does not occur
in any old map. It is marked Grote Bay by Joris (16 14); Bay
aux oiseaux by Guerard (1628); De grote vogel bay by Commelin
(1642) ; Archipelago by G. and R. (1707) and Zorgdrager. Perhaps
this is the Vausques (Basques) bate of the Cash chart (1629).
Fox Point (Edge, 1625). — The Dutch used to call it Flat Hook ( Vlacke
Hoek).
Monniers Bay (Guerard, 1628, and all the early charts); Commelin
(1648) calls it ,5. Laurens Bay. The modern name, Red Bay, first
appears with Van Keulen (1689). At the bottom of the bay was
Point Deceit (Edge, 1625). The cove W. of Point Deceit is named
Ayer Bay on Blaeu's map (1664). Thomas Ayers was one of
the first English whaling skippers at the beginning of the 17th
century.
Biscayers Hook (G and R., 1707). — This was called by Edge (1625) Point
Wellcome, but that name has now been shifted, past correction,
to a neighbouring headland.
Red Beach (Edge, 1625) and Rehenfelt (Martens). — These are names
for the land between Biscayers Hook and Welcome Point. The
east side of the same cape, S. of Welcome Point, is named Agter

APPENDIX 359
Reene Velt (G. and R., 1707, and Zorgdrager). G. and R. mark three
hills on Red Beach — Rooberg, Trourenberg, and Berg op Reenvehl.
Martens (167 1) says that there is a hill on Red Beach "that
looketh like fire."
Welcome Point. — The modern name for the point W. of the entrance to
Liefde Bay. The original Welcome Point is that now known as
Biscayers Hook.
Wiches Sound (Edge, 1625), De Oostinwyck (Blaeu, 1664), Oosterwyk or
Wyde Bay (Van Keulen, 1689), Liefde Bay (Martens, 167 1). The
S. branch of Liefde Bay is named Wood Bay by Scoresby. A
cove in the E. shore of Liefde Bay is called Muys Haven by Blaeu
(1664) and Liefde Baytje by G. and R. (1707).
Moffen Island (Blaeu, 1664). — This island is marked in all the old
Dutch charts. G. and R. (1707) state that it "is 6 veet boven
water," so that Phipps was wrong in thinking it newly elevated.
Castlins Point (Edge, 1625), between Wiches Sound and Wijde Bay.
It has had many names — Swartehoek (Blaeu, 1664), Grey Hook or
Flakke Point (Van Keulen, 1689), Derre Hoek (G. and R., 1707),
Dorre Hoek (Zorgdrager). This is the Grey Hook of the Admiralty
Chart.
Wijde Bay (Goos, 1666). — Originally named Sir Thomas Smith's Inlet
by Edge (1625). In its W. side, near the entrance, was a little
bay namedyaw Tennises Bight by G. and R. (1707), apparently the
same as the Beere Bay of Van Keulen (1689). Farther in, on the
same side, four reefs were marked by G. and R. (1707). On the E.
shore G. and R. mark Sand Dunes, and farther out three great
glaciers. Aldert Dirkses Groote Baaytje is marked by G. and R.,
whilst the point immediately N. of it seems to be the Steyle Hoek
of Van Keulen (1689). Bangen Hoek (Van Keulen, 1689) is the
point W. of Mossel Bay.
Mossel Bay (Martens, 1671) was named after Mossel, who was Van
Muyden's second in command in 16 12 or 16 13. Helvemaens Bay
(Goos, 1666) was an alternative name marked on most Dutch
charts.
Verlegen Hook (Van Keulen, 1689) appears to be the Point Desir
of Edge (1625). It is the Langenes of Blaeu (1664), and the Vlakke
Hoek of G. and R. (1707). The name is misprinted Vertegen
Hook on some modern maps.
Hinloopen Strait (Blaeu, 1664). — Also called Weighatt by the Dutch.
Both names occur on most charts.

360 SPITSBERGEN
New Friesland (G. and R., 1707). — The country between Wijde Bay
and Hinloopen Straits.
Willem Volckx Baaiytje (G. and R., 1707). — This is either Treurenberg
Bay or some cove between it and Verlegen Hook.
Luysen Eyland (Van Keulen, 1689, and G. and R., 1707). — Marked
as near the coast between Verlegen Hook and Treurenberg Bay.
Treurenberg (G. and R., 1707). — A hill W. of Treurenberg Bay.
Treurenberg or Sorge Bay (Scoresby). — Named also Mosiel Bay
erroneously by Blaeu (1664). Beere Bay (Goos, 1666, and many
others) seems to have been its common Dutch name. A hill
S. of the bay was named Beere Berg (G. and R., 1707), but the
same map marks Lommeberg or Beere Berg W. of Lomme Bay,
and Lomme Berg again E. of Lomme Bay.
Parrot Hook (G. and R., 1707), between Cape Foster and Lomme Bay
By "parrot" is meant "puffin."
Lomme Bay, or Bear Bay (G. and R., 1707).
Lomme Berg (G. and R., 1707). — E. of Lomme Bay.
Duym Point (G. and R., 1707). — As on the modern charts.
South Waygat (Scoresby). — The S. end of Hinloopen Strait.
Unicorn Bay (Goos, 1666), V schip d' Enhoorens bay. — G. and R. (1707)
call it Lome Bay, or de Eenhoorens Bay.
Heley Sound. — Named after a fellow- skipper by Edge (1625); it is
generally misspelt Helis Sound, or even Hell Sound. Poor Heley !
Seal Island (Van Keulen, 1689). — This is overwhelmed by a glacier,
and is probably the hill now called Edlunds Mount.
Walrus Island (Van Keulen, 1689). — West of Seal Island, and like it
now enveloped in glacier.
Bear Gat (Van Keulen, 1689). — Buried beneath the Negri Glacier.
Wiches Bay (Edge, 1625). — Doubtless much covered by the Negri
Glacier ; in the Dutch charts it is generally called Whales
Wiches Bay.
Keerweer (Van Keulen, 1689). — The Mohn Bay of modern maps.
Eox Nose (Edge, 1625). — Or Ness.
Foul Sound (Edge, 1625). — The name is retained in all the Dutch
charts except Blaeu's (1664), where this is called Bay met Vuij-
lerudsen. The modern name is Agardh Bav.
Whales Head (Edge, 1625). — This name has never been changed.
Whales Bay. — Not marked in Scoresby or any earlier chart.
Muscovie Mount (Edge, 1625). — Name retained on most old Dutch
charts, but changed to Mt. Hedgehog on modern maps.

APPENDIX 361
V Hoi van een Schip (Blaeu, 1664). — An island or bay off the E. coast
near to the S. Cape.
Wybe Jans Water (Middelhoven, 1634). — Amusingly called by Guerard
(1628) Destroict de Jean Suatre. The Norwegians call it Stor
Fjord. BARENDSZ ISLAND
When this island was believed to join Spitsbergen it was
called South- East-L* and (G. and R., 1707), a name that continued
intuse till after Scoresby.
Lommenberg (Goos, 1666). — A hill on the E. coast.
Vossen Bay (Van Keulen, 1689). — In the W. coast.
Anderson's Islands were originally named by Edge (1625) Sir Thomas
Smith's Islands, a name now generally applied to some smaller
islands in the W. entrance of Alderman Freeman's Inlet.
Cape Barkham (Edge, 1625).
Alderman Freeman's Inlet (Edge, 1625). — Called Walter Thymeyis
Fioerd'va Van Keulen's chart (1689), and later.

EDGE ISLAND
So named by Thomas Edge in 16 16. Its E. cape was named Stones
Foreland, which was confused by the Dutch into Stans Foreland
(G. and R., 1707) and applied to the whole island; this name is
now commonly used by the Norwegians.
Lees Foreland (Edge., 1625). — The NW. cape.
Cape Blanck. — The N. point of Disco Bay.
Dusco (Goos, 1666). — A position on the W. coast.
Whales Head (Edge, 1625). — The SW. cape.
Deicrow Sound (Edge, 1625). — The deep bay between the SW. and S
capes. It is named London Bay by Middelhoven (1634), and
Deeve Bay by Goos (1666) and others. Van Keulen (1689)
names the outer part Deeve Bay, and the head Deicroivs Sound,
and this is the nomenclature followed afterwards. Bear Bay
(Edge, 1625) is in the E. side of the|bay, close to Negro Point.
Negro Point (Edge, 1625). — The S. c/ipe, called Dictus Point by
Middelhoven (1634), Swarten Ho&:k by Blaeu (1664), and Black

Hook by mahyV^^-^^_^ _ /

362 SPITSBERGEN
St. Jacobs Bay (Blaeu). — In the SE. coast.
Stans Foreland (Van Keulen, 1689).— A mistaken name for the SE.
coast.
Disco (G. and R., 1707).— On Stones Foreland, near a former whale
fishery.
Stones Foreland (Edge, 1625). — The E. cape.
Ryk Yse Islands (Goos, 1666).— Named after the Dutch skipper Ryk
Yse.
Halfmoon Island (Goos, 1666).
Thousand Islands, a modern name, first found on Scoresby's chart,
and suggested by the old maps rather than by nature, for the
islands themselves are not really very numerous. Their number was
greatly exaggerated on the Dutch charts, from Van Keulen's (1689).
They are generally described as Laag gebrooken Land. The follow
ing names appear in the Dutch and other charts, but the islands
cannot be certainly identified : Abbots Island, Scotts Island, Heling
Island, Hopeless Islands, Bear Island, Wester Island.
Hope Island (Edge, 1625).

THE SEVEN ISLANDS AND NORTH-EAST-LAND
North-East-Land 'is marked on the Goos chart (1666) as a collection of
islands, whereof the NE. group are called the Seven Islands. Van
Keulen (1689) is not much better informed, but he marks two of
the true Seven Islands separately to the north. North-East-Land
is first properly marked and named by G. and R. (1707). The
south point of it was seen by Edge in 16 16, and named Sir
Thomas Smith's Island.
The Seven Islands were well enough known in Martens' time (1671),
but were first marked with approximate correctness by G. and R.
(1707). Hooyberg (Van Keulen, 1689) was probably Phipps
Island. Tafelberg (Van Keulen, 1689) was Martens Island or
Parry's Island. Ambeelt (G. and R., 1707) may have been Martens
Island.
Shoal Point (Martens). — The NW. cape of North-East-Land.
Great Stone (G. and R., 1707). — In its SE. side is marked a deep bay
named Illays Haven.
Low Island. — Perhaps this is the Purchas plus ultra Island of Edge
(1625); it is V Lage Eyland of G. and R. (1707).
Brandywine Bay (Van Keulen, 1689).

APPENDIX 363
Extreme Hook. Marked by G. and R. (1707) Uyterste Hoek or Uyterste
Land.
Point Purchas (Edge, 1625). — The Black Cape of Scoresby, the North
Cape of modern charts.
Scoresby Island is apparently the Vlak Eyl. of G. and R. (1707).
Cape Platen seems to be the Rene Eyl. of G. and R. (1707).
Outger Reps Eyland (G. and R., 1707).
Walrus Eyland (G. and R., 1707) is Zoogdrager's Walvis Eyland.
Duyre Bay (G. and R., 1707). — SSE. of Outger Reps Eyland.
Een Groot hoog Eyland (G. and R., 1707). — Near Cape Leigh Smith.
Cape Torell. — A modern name for the point that used to be called South
Hook by the Dutch (G. and R., 1707).
Veene (G. and R., 1707). — Apparently the modern Augusta Bay.
Wiches Land (Edge, 1625). — This, I think, is the same as that marked
by G. and R. (1707), "Commandeur Giles Land ontdet 1707, is
hoog land." In a future work I shall state my reasons for this
belief. Wiches Land is now generally called King Karl's Land,
or King Charles Islands, but the old name should be preserved.

LIST OF EARLY MAPS OF SPITSBERGEN
The following is not intended to be a complete list of
maps of Spitsbergen. It contains only those which present
novelties of nomenclature. Other maps and charts, which
merely copy the names appearing on these, are not
mentioned, nor is any map included that is later than
Scoresby's : —
Barendsz' map, dated 1598, and published by Cornelius Claeszoon at
Amsterdam. It is found in some copies of the second part of the
abridged Latin edition of Lindschoten's Navigatio ac Itinerarium
(The Hague, 1599).
Jodocus Hondius' map, published in J. I. Pontanus, Rerum et Urbis
Amstelodamensium Historia (Amsterdam, 161 1, 4to).
Hessel Gerritsz' map, copied from the lost chart by Daniels. It forms
part of Gerritsz' Histoire du pays nomme Spitsberghe (Amsterdam,
r6i3, 4to).
Carl Joris' map of 1614; MS. in the Depot de la Marine, Paris.

364 SPITSBERGEN
Thomas Edge's chart of 1625, in the third part of " Purchas his Pilgrims,"
and in Pellham's "God's Power and Providence" (London, 1631).
Jean Guerard's chart of 1 628, in the Depot de la Marine, Paris.
Cash chart of about 1629, French MS. chart belonging to Mr. C. G.
Cash of Edinburgh.
Middelhoven 's chart of 1634, MS. in the Rijks-Archief at the Hague.
Isaac Commelijn's map, based on Daniel's chart of 16 12. It is in
Commelijn's Begin ende Voortgahg vande Neederlandtsche Oost
Indische Compagnie (Amsterdam, 1646, 4to).
J. A. Colom's chart in Der Vyerighe Colom (Amsterdam, 1648).
Blaeu 's chart of 1663 (?), published in Le Grand Atlas ou Cosmographi
Blaviane (Amsterdam, 1663).
Pieter Goos' chart of 1666 (?), entitled De Custen van Noorwegen, Fin-
marken, Laplandt, Spitsbergen, &c, published at Amsterdam
about 1666.
J. Van Keulen' s chart, published in his atlas of 1689 (Amsterdam).
Giles and Reps chart, published at Amsterdam by Gerard Van Keulen,
about 1707.
ZorgdrageZs chart in his Groenlandische visscherij (Amsterdam,
1720, 4to).
W. Scoresby's chart in his " Account of the Arctic Regions " (Edinburgh,
1820, 8vo).

INDEX

[The numerous names in the Appendix, there arranged in geographical
order, are not included in this Index.]

Advent Bay, 55-67, 72, 79, 82, 105,
155, 254, 313, 34°-
Advent Hills, 218, 220.
Advent Point, 59, 68, 79, 156, 205,
235, 252.
Advent Point, tourist hut at, 10, 11,
23, 63, 65, 235, 338.
Advent Point, tourists at, 64, 65.
Advent Vale, 66, 105, 108, in, 112,
154, 204.
Agardh Bay, 173, I7S. "76, 178-
182.
Aldert Dirks Bay, 293.
Amsterdam Island, 270.
Andre'e, Herr, 58, 255, 270-273, 300,
301.
Arctic Circle, crossing the, 27.
Arctic Expedition of 1869-70, 261.
Axel Island, 305, 306.
Bade, Captain, 256, 260, 337.
Baldhead Glacier, 201, 202, 203.
Baldhead Peak, m, 112, 149, 201.
Balloon, Andree's, 271.
Bar, the, 305.
Barefoot walking, 197.
Barendsz, William, 3.
Barendsz Land, 2, 288, 290.
Bastion Camp, 327.
Bastion Islands, 288.
Bastion Ridge, 333.

Bay ice, 244.
Bear Island, 39.
Bears, Polar, 57, 59, 104, 280.
Bell Mountain, 307, 308, 309.
Bell Sound, 57, 85, 305, 307, 319,
339-
Bergen, 15.
Bird-rock, 34, 232.
Birds, 38, 42, 66, 152, 199, 206, 207,
270, 292, 296.
Blomstrands Harbour, 303.
Bogs, 68, 73, 78, 80, 115, 153, 170,
196, 294.
Bogs, formation of, 128.
Boheman, glaciers of Cape, 42, 60,
70, 79. 84, i"8, 199, 220, 231, 241,
303, 3°4, 3 "7-
Bolter Camp, 66, 74, 77, 80, 99.
Bolter Pass, 92, 98, 99, 254.
Bolter Valley, 77, 100, 204.
Booming Glacier, 109, no, 112, 121,
201-203.
Booming Peak, ascent of, 202.
Botanical collector, a, 224, 230.
Bottolfsen, Ice-master, 257, 276, 279,
290, 314, 323, 324, 328-334.
Brent Pass, 109, no, 118, 154, 157,
201.
Brettesnaes, 30.
Bucking-horse Camp, 144, 193.
Bunting Bluff, 82, 87, 312.
365

366

INDEX

Cairn Camp, 79, 80, 101, 133, 154,
204.
Caldron Waterfall, 114.
Camps, 60, 75, 107, 141, 147, 161,
168, 185, 228, 235, 313, 327.
Capitol, the, 212, 242.
Castrens Islands, 280.
Christiansund, 18.
Clothing for Spitsbergen, 263.
Cloud fantasies, 149.
Cloven Cliff, 275, 300.
\^ Coal found in Spitsbergen, 57, 69,
76.
Coal Bay, see Coles Bay.
Coal Mount, 308.
Colds in the head, 312.
Coles Bay, 6, 7, 47, 53, 77, 100, 254,
308.
Colorado Berg, 113, 117, 120, 121,
137, 164.
Colosseum, the, 212, 241.
Conclave, the, 244.
Conway, Mr. H. E., 10, 13, 103, 239,
240, 242, 243, 249, 251,259, 295, 307.
Corrie Down, 218-221.
Corrie Glacier, 220.
Crevasses, danger from hidden, 134,
177, 211, 212, 325, 327, 329, 331,
333-
Cross Bay, 6, 268, 302, 348.
Danes Gat, 270, 300, 301.
Danes Island, 58, 270, 301.
Darbishire, Mr. B. V., 14.
Darbishire's hams, 14, 181.
Dead Man's Cape, 42, 266.
De Geer, Baron Gerard, 58, 124,
200, 213, 214, 252, 258, 262, 317.
De Geer Camp, 200.
De Geer Valley, 104, 107, 214, 218,
231.
Delta Valley, 117, 127, 129, 196.
Delusion Camp, 168, 189.
Dickson Sound, 43, 238, 243-248,
297.

Dickson Sound, valleys E. of, 248.
Disintegration of rocks, 129.
Dome View Camp, 245, 246.
Dreary Valley, 85, 95-99, 308.
Drooge Rivier, see Shallow River.
Drying of the ground, time of, 193.
Dun Islands, tragedy at, 314-316,
321.
Dutch Bay, 3, 268, 269, 274, 300.
Dynamite, adventure with, 280.
Eclipse of the sun, 261, 292, 322.
Edge Land, 2, 173, 176, 260, 276,
290.
Ekman Bay, 238, 243, 249.
Ekrem of TromsS, Captain, 225.
Ekroll, Mr. M., 36.
Emergency food, 80.
English Bay, 3, 268, 341.
English climate Arctic, 214.
Englishmen with guns disliked, 224.
Equipment, 24, 62, 263, 343.
Erling Jarl steamer reaches lat. 81°
40' N., 256, 260.
Esker River, fording the, 143.
Esker Valley, in, 113.
Expres steamer, 11, 255, 257, 262,
265, 266, 271, 276, 308-310, 313
316, 319, 320, 323, 334.
Fair Haven, 3.
Flower Garden, the, 241, 249.
Flower Glacier, 210, 211.
Flower Pass, 210.
Flower Valley, 200, 207-212.
Fogs, 91, 168, 186, 325-334-
Food, 192.
Foreland, Prince Charles's, 2, 42, 267,
303, 34", 347-
Fossil ice, 94, 169.
Foster Islands, 286.
Foul Point, 275.
Fox Glacier, 90.
Fox Pass, 90.
Fox Peak, 84, 311, 340.

INDEX

367

Fox Valley, 77, 79, 81, 90, 105, 204.
Foxes, 79, 85, "33, "55, 217, 221.
Franz Josef Land, weather in, 8, 256.
Fulmar petrels crossing to the east
coast, 158, 159, 166, 174.
Fulmar Valley, 117, 161, 165-17 1.
Garonne, steamer, 265.
Garwood, Mr. E. J., 9, 13, 44, 66,
70, 87, 89, 92, 102, 105, 107, 130,
144, 148, 163, 167, 180, 195, 201-
205, 230, 232, 259, 295, 305, 307,
3 " 3, 3 "4, 323-336-
Garwood, contributions by Mr. E. J.,
44, 201, 323.
Geese, 74, no, 126, 186.
Giant's Chair, 245.
Gillis Land, 2.
Glacier Camp, 249.
Glacier ice-foot, 93, 120, 130, 172, 209.
Glaciers, surface drainage, 210, 247,
285.
Glaciers ending in the sea, 267, 268,
274, 283, 284, 287, 295.
Glaciers in Spitsbergen, character of,
93, 177, 210, 268.
Glaucous gulls, 126, 136, 296.
Glen, the, 244.
Goes Haven, 320, 324.
Goose Island, 104.
Grand Glacier, see Post Glacier.
Green Harbour, 42, 43, 254, 259,
265, 266, 308.
Gregory, Dr. J. W., 9, 13, 24, 32, 34,
36, 61, 66, 71, 103, 105, 112, 115,
116, 123, 125, 127, 195, 200, 206,
214, 259, 3°5,3U, 321, 335-
Gregory, letter by Dr. J. W., 151.
Gregory's long march, 153.
Grey Hook, 292, 293, 299.
Grit Ridge, 131-136.
Grit Ridge Glacier, 130, 132.
Gulf Stream, its effect on Spits
bergen, 1.
Gunner Berg's pictures, 30.

Hammerfest, 321.
Harlingen, Cookery of, 270.
Hecla Cove, 283.
Hecla Hook, 283, 284.
Hedgehog, Mount, 41, 312, 313, 320,
321, 323-334, 339.
Heley Sound, 288, 289.
Helis Sound, see Heley Sound.
Hestmand Island, 27.
Hill formation by denudation of a
plateau, 120.
Hinloopen Strait, 6, 256, 261, 275,
282-287, 291.
Horneln, 18.
Horn Sound, 41, 312, 313, 314, 320,
323, 328, 329, 331.
Hornsunds Tind, see Mount Hedge
hog.
Hudson, the navigator, 3.
Hull, 14.
Hyperite Hat, 231-234.
Hyperite Waterfall, 215.
Ice Blink, 39, 274, 280, 287, 288.
Ice, drift, 39, 53, 59, 65, 70, 103, 151,
275, 276, 282, 287, 289, 291, 305.
Ice Fjord, 41, 53, 70, 118, 199,216,
218, 313,339-
Ice-pack, 288, 289, 290, 291.
Ice-pack, drift of the Polar, 275.
Ice-pack, edge of the Polar, 274, 275,
277, 279, 280.
Inland ice, 83, 119, 120, 149, 174, 268,
277, 284, 285, 286, 287, 347.
Isthmus between Dickson and Wijde
Bays, 246, 297.
Ivory Gate, passage of the, 172-183.
Ivory Glacier, 173-182.
Jackson, Mr., 8, 256.
Jeaffreson, Dr., 228, 317.
Johansen, Herr, 322.
Keerwyck, 267, 305.
Keilhau, Professor, 5.

368

INDEX

King Karl Islands, see Wiche Land.
Kings Bay, 268, 302, 303, 348.
Klaas Billen Bay, 43, 118, 213, 222,
231, 254, 348.
Klok Bay, see Low Sound.
Knorring, Lieut. O., 58, 318.
Knottie Point, 302.
Kobbe Bay, 301.
Krogh, Mount, 136.
Lamont, Mr., 5, 6, 256, 288.
Lapps, 36, 55.
Lervoss, 21.
Liefde Bay, 256, 268, 300.
Lindstrom, Mount, 7, 59, 83.
Lofoten Islands, 29.
Lofoten Islands, view over, 32.
Lomme Bay, 283, 284, 285.
Loven, Mount, 285.
Loven, Professor Sven, 5.
Low Sound, 77, 79, 85, 97, 254, 305-
3", 347-
Lubbock, Sir John, 244.
Lusitania, Mount, 106, 131, 133, 211.
Lyell, Cape, 305.
Lyktan, Mount, 248.
Magdalena Bay, 3, 269, 302, 341,
347-
Marmier, Mount, 117, 119, 130.
Martens Island, 278.
Milne-Edwards Camp, 191.
Milne-Edwards Peak, 6, 117.
Milton's indebtedness to Purchas,
277.
Mitra, Cape, 302.
Mittel Hook in Bell Sound, 57, 98.
Mohn Bay, 120.
Mohn, Cape, 290.
Moller Bay, 6.
Moraine, passage over old, 168,
188.
Moraines, ancient, 106.
Mo Sadlen, 30.
Mossel Bay, 6, 293, 299.

Nansen, Dr. F., 48, 322, 336.
Nathorst, Professor, 120.
Needlework, 144, 207.
Neves in Spitsbergen, 90, 123, 132,
134, 210, 268.
New Friesland, 283, 294.
Nordenskjold, Baron A., 5, 6, 278,
286, 293.
Nordenskjold Glacier, 348.
Nordenskjold, Gustaf, 6, 7.
Nordenskjold, Mount, 59, 83, 340.
North. East-Land, 2, 6, 276, 277, 280,
283, 286, 287.
North Fjord, 118, 238, 318.
Norway Islands, 6, 275, 300.
Norwegian hunters, 4.
Ohel Sound, 30.
Olga Strait, 282, 287, 288.
Ondiepe Rivier, see Shallow River.
Ooze Camp, 107, 204.
Orkedalsoren, 23.
Paierl Glacier, 320.
Parry Island, 278.
Pedersen, 35, 77, 107, 113, 124, 125,
138, 152, 240, 246, 259.
Petermann, Cape, 296, 298.
Phipps Island, 278.
Photographic apparatus, 24.
Pike, Mr. Arnold, 271.
Pioneer Pills, 191.
Plan of the inland journey, 8, 86, 149,
161, 165.
Plants, 125, 230, 241, 31S.
Plateaus in Spitsbergen, 59, 73, 83.
Platen, Cape, 280.
Plough Glacier, 85, 90, 91.
Point Lookout, 321.
Polar Ocean, depth of, 278.
Ponies, 7, 8, 16, 20, 35, 63, 64, 68,
72, 76, 78, 80, 109, 123, 138, 143,
160, 161, 184, 186, 187, 190, 259,
262.

INDEX

369

Post Glacier, 119, 152, 197, 198, 199,
218, 229.
Prospect Point, 173, 176.
Prospect Ridge, 173.
Ptarmigan, 100, 10 1, 107.
Purple sandpiper's nest, 88.
•Quade Hook, 268, 305.
Rabot, Mons. C, 6, 7, 117, 193.
Rabot Glacier, 94, 114, 120, 136,
158, 165.
Raftsund, 30, 31.
Rainbow lying on snowfield, 85, 86.
Recherche Bay, see Schoonhoven.
Red Beach, 300.
Red Hill, 245.
Reindeer, 74, 81, 90, 92, 107, no,
112,122,132,164, 166,193,196,214.
Reindeer hunters, 4, 55, 59, 77, 225.
Results of the journey, n, 12.
Rieper Glacier, 100.
Risbsund, 32.
Rivers eating backward, III, 149.
Robbe Bay, 301.
Ross Island, 278.
Rotjes Mountain, 320, 321.
Ruins of blubber-boiling station, 325.
Russian trappers, 4, 5, 42, 250, 260,
3 "4-
Russian Valley, 41, 53, 54, 260.
Ryk Yse Islands, 256, 276, 290.
Saddle Point, 267.
Safe Haven, 43.
St. John's Bay, 267.
Sassen Bay, 6, 43, 103, 113, 116, 118,
124, 127, 131, 151, 197, 199, 209,
210, 212, 216, 217, 226.
Sassendal, 6, in, 1 13-120, 123, 128,
146, 158, 163, 164, 190-197, 211.
Saurie River, 240.
Scenery of the coast, 41, 43. 237, 265,
270, 273, 274, 283, 285, 286, 292,
295, 298, 316, 318, 340, 341.

Scenery of the interior, 106, 109, in,
112, 113, 142, 157, 164, 169, 188.
Schoonhoven, 6, 98, 312, 339.
Scurvy, 56, 57.
Sea, annoyances of, 19.
Sea, N. of Spitsbergen, very clear
of ice in summer of 1896, 104,
256.
Seals, 40, 58, 244, 288, 292, 310.
Seven Icebergs, the, 268, 302.
Seven Islands, 104, 278-281.
Seven Sisters Mountains, 27.
Shallow River, valley of the, 77, 85,
97, 254, 3°8, 3"o> 3"i-
Shark-fishing, 319.
Sir Thomas Smith's Bay, see Wijde
Bay.
Sir Thomas, Mount, 297, 298.
Skaaro, 37.
Skans Bay, 158.
Sky, colour of Arctic, 47, 175.
Sledges, 7, 8, 64, 67, 77, 78, 88, 104,
112, 115, 116, 157, 163, 189, 200,
205, 252.
Sloops met, 104, 276,286, 291, 311,
3'9-
Smeerenburg, 4, 270, 274, 341.
Smith, Cape, 243.
Snow-bogs, 78, 95, 99.
Snow cornice on the shore, 42, 216,
234-
Snow in vile condition, 92, 134.
South Cape, see Point Lookout.
South Gat, 269, 270, 302.
Spectre of the Brocken, 86.
Spirit-lamp explodes, 206.
Spitsbergen air not stimulating, 192,
221.
Spitsbergen, anniversary of dis
covery of, 40.
Spitsbergen, area of, 2.
Spitsbergen, character of soil in, 45.
Spitsbergen, first view of, 41.
Spitsbergen, geography of the inte
rior, 347. 2 A

37°

INDEX

Spitsbergen hills, nature of, 45, 82.
Spitsbergen, history of, 3.
Spitsbergen, N. coast, 277, 292, 294.
Spitsbergen, scientific exploration
of, 5-
Spitsbergen, summer climate, 65,
213, 253, 339-
Spitsbergen, tourist route to, 255.
Spitsbergen, unknown interior, 6,
347-
Spitsbergen, W. coast of, 266, 307,
34°.
Splendid Glacier, 241, 242, 249.
Stadling, Mr. J., 36, 58, 271, 301.
Stans Foreland, see Edge Land.
Starashchin, 42.
Starashchin, Cape, 41, 43.
Starashchin, Mount, 41.
Starashchin, Mount, ascent of, 44.
Start inland, 67, 70.
Starvation Bluff, 104, 124, 131, 138,
15°, '97, 199-
Stavanger, 15.
Sticky Keep, 1 16-122, 133.
Stjernspetz, Lieut., 248, 297.
Stokmarknaes, 32-34.
Stordal, see Shallow River.
Stor Fjord, see Wybe Jans Water.
Studley, Mr. J. T., 10, 24, 66, 104,
155,271.
Summer, end of, 234.
Sundewall Mountains, 98, 310.
Surveying, difficulties of, 71.
Sverdrup, Captain, 338.
Svolvaer, 30.
Table Islands, 27S, 279.
Table Mountain, 248.
Teist, Mount, 136.
Temple Bay, 118, 119, 213.
Temple Mountain, 114, 118, 127, 136,
152, 196, 209, 213, 229.
Tents, 60, 103.
Thaw, the great summer, 68, 73, 77,
129, 157, 325-

Thordsen, Cape, 56, 57, 58, 222, 228,
240.
Three Crowns, 303.
Thumb Point, 287.
Torell, Cape, 256, 286, 287, 291.
Torell Glacier, 321.
Torell, Otto, 5.
Torrents in Spitsbergen, 68, 73, 77,
78, 105, 109, 125, 129, 142, 150, 154,
"55, "59, 162, 182, 189, 192, 196.
Tourist steamers to Spitsbergen, 338.
Traenen Islands, 27.
Treurenberg Bay, 283, 284, 292.
Trevor-Battye, Mr. A., 9, 13, 14, 51,
66, 71, 103, 125, 138, 145, 146, 198,
213, 221, 237, 259, 296, 307, 314,
323, 324, 326, 329, 330, 331, 332,
334-
Trevor-Battye, report by Mr. A.,
238-251.
Trevor-Battye's Glacier, 247.
Trident Peak, 117, 127, 140, 146,
148-150, 159, 201.
Trold Fjord, 31.
Troldtind, 31.
Tromso, 34.
Trondhjem, 20.
Turnback Valley, 6, 149, 159.
Turnstone observed by Dr. Gregory,
"55-
Unicorn Bay, 288.
Vaagakallen, 29.
Van Keulen Bay, 306, 347.
Van Meyens Bay, see Low Sound.
Velvet Lawn, 244.
Verlegen Hook, 275, 276, 282, 283,
291, 292.
Views from peaks. 32. 47, 83, 85. 87,
118, 148, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178,
210, 21 1.
Vogelgesang's Monument, 69.
Vogelhoek, 268.
Vogelsang Island, 275, 300.

INDEX

371

Waern, Cape, 241, 242.
Wahlenberg Bay, 6, 285.
Walberg Island, 287.
Walden, 265, 278-280.
Walkey, Mr. R. Huyshe, 229, 235,
27", 3"7, 3"9-
Walrus, 4, 56, 289.
Walter, Cape, 291.
Waterfall Camp, 115, 194, 195.
Waterfalls, 27, 114, 215.
Waygat, 286.
Weather, bad, 67, 71, 74, 75, 76, 80,
91, 102, 150, 170, 184, 213, 236,
243, 252, 258, 259, 267, 273, 316,
327-334-
Weather, fine, 84, 87, 116, 122, 128,
129, 133, 136, 147, 152, 155, "95,
198, 222, 229, 230, 241.

Wegener, Dr. G, 319, 322.
Welcome Point, 300.
Wellman Expedition, 279.
West fjord of Wijde Bay, 296-298.
Weyprecht, Cape, 288.
Whale fishery, 3, 258, 274, 341.
Whale Point, 173.
Whaling station, yj, 321.
Wiche Land, 2, 275, 282, 287, 290,
291, 297.
Wijde Bay, 7, 239, 284, 292-299.
Wijk, Cape, 240, 241.
William I. Island, 287, 288.
Windy Point, 199, 200, 206.
Winterers in Spitsbergen in 1895-96,
55-60, 236, 25S.
Wrede, Cape, 280.
Wybe Jans Water, 65, 136, 173, 178.

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