During our explorations of the previous year in the belt of boggy interior between Advent Bay and the east coast, every glacier we came across had an iceflat below its snout, formed by the freezing of the winter snow when impregnated by water drained out of the glacier. This year we had met with no examples of such iceflats before this one in Goose Haven. It was of great extent and evidently destined to survive the rapidly departing summer, for it still averaged about six feet in thickness. The glacier streams had cut deep channels through it, which the first heavy snowfall would easily block, again compelling the water to soak into the new bed of snow and prepare it in its turn to be frozen solid later on. The intermittent thaws of spring may be more effective in forming the snow-bog, which is the needful preliminary condition of an ice-foot, than is the autumn drainage held back by the autumnal snowfall. As to this we possess no information. Between the two the phenomenon is produced. As a rule the summer thaw must suffice to melt the ice-foot away, for, if it did not, there would be a continual increase in the thickness of the ice, and a kind of glacier would be formed. Of such glaciers, however, we have seen no examples. Though we found several cases of ice-foot apparently destined to survive the summer, they probably owed their survival either to the fact that they were produced by exceptionally heavy local falls of snow, or to the summer’s thaw being below the average in total amount. One year with another, the balance of formation and thaw appears to be equalised. At all events, we have no evidence yet of any glacial ice-foot that steadily increases. If, however, such an increasing ice-foot were to arise, it would tend to bury the terminal moraine and unite itself to the snout of the glacier, but before the process had advanced very far the surface of the ice-foot would begin to acquire a slope, on which a snow-bog could hardly be formed. The glacial water would be drained quickly away and the conditions for further increase of the ice-foot would no longer exist.

Considering such questions, I dawdled about on the beach and the ice, to the great disgust of some glaucous gulls, who kept swooping down close to my head with horrid cries. Rain falling heavily did not add perceptibly to the discomforts of the cold and blustery day. Near camp was another ruined whalers’ settlement or cookery, surrounded by quantities of bleached and rotting bones, and with the inevitable grave-mound close by. The ruins in this case were better preserved, so that their character was recognisable. A whalers’ cookery consisted essentially of two parts, a “tent” and a cauldron. The tent was a building of four low stone walls roofed with sailcloth passed over a ridge-pole and held down by rocks round the edges. The walls of the tent are still standing on a mound. Close by are the wrecks of the brickwork belonging to two cauldrons for boiling down blubber. Quantities of coal-slag showed the nature of the fuel employed. All about the ruins and amongst the bones, moss was growing with the peculiar rankness already mentioned as characteristic of the sites of human habitation in Spitsbergen.

Rain fell steadily all night long. The tide rising higher than before, banged our boat about, for all we could do was to drag it as high as the waves would carry it at high tide, and stand by to prevent accidents till the waters had retreated again. Obviously, we must seek some better haven. Accordingly Garwood and I set forth along the shore northward to the point, and then eastward. Expecting no worse trouble than rivers to cross, I wore only rubber waders, and hands in pockets instead of carrying an ice-axe. This was all right so long as the beach lasted, but where cliffs took the place of beach, difficulties arose. The slope above the cliffs proved to be furrowed by couloirs filled with ice. Garwood being somewhere aloft, stone-breaking, I had to cross the gullies without assistance. This was accomplished by a new system. Having selected a couple of sharp-pointed stones, like palæolithic celts, I lay down and scrambled across, digging the stones in and using them as handhold. Fortunately the slope was not steep. In case of a slip I should have shot down the couloir fast enough, and been tossed out at the foot of it over the cliff into the sea. The point of the bay was reached beyond the fourth of these couloirs. The view over the head of Horn Sound was tolerably good, though the strong cold wind made its investigation anything but pleasant. The mountain-tops were hidden. It is their remarkably bold forms that make fair-weather views of the sound so beautiful. All the glaciers, however, were clear of fog. The end of the sound is filled by a very big one; two others, descending from Horn Sunds Tind, jutted out the cliffs of their splintered sea-fronts between the end glacier and our point, whilst a whole series of minor glaciers descend to, or almost to, the sea, along the north shore, the principal one debouching into a fine bay almost opposite to us.

After taking observations at the point, I went eastward along the south shore, where, above a low rock wall, is a belt of fairly level ground intervening between the sound and a grand precipice that reached up into leaden clouds. A group of graves was passed, near the little rock-bound cove to which we afterwards moved camp. Half a mile on came a remarkable assemblage of great fallen rocks, looking from the distance like some ancient megalithic monument. The individual rocks were as big as houses; ages ago they all fell together in a mighty avalanche from the top of the neighbouring precipice. Almost all of them have been cloven in half by atmospheric denudation and frost, and the clefts afford delightful scrambles. In the midst of the ruin are mossy lawns, springs of clear water, a few pools, and accumulations of winter snow lingering in shady places. Here I came up with Garwood enjoying shelter from the wind in a quiet nook. The views from the tops of these rocks, and from various places among them, were most striking, especially when some glacier-front could be caught within a framing foreground of the splintered crags. We paid several visits to these Stonehenge rocks, as we named them. Garwood, I believe, climbed them all. Half a dozen contented me. Their quaintness grew upon us. We were always finding new resemblances in their queer forms. Some had almost dissolved away, leaving mere pillars to represent what had been mighty cubes. One such pillar looked to me like an ancient Arabian bethel, but Garwood called it “a ripping tombstone”!

Some distance farther on came the first side glacier (Kittiwake Glacier), emerging, past the end of the precipice, out of a gap in the hills. Just at the angle is the resting-place of innumerable kittiwakes, whose cries mingled with the noise of the wind. The glacier was gained above its crevassed end, after a toilsome scramble up moraine. It proved to be snow-covered and full of hidden crevasses. Never, I suppose, was a glacier party less well provided than were we two men to face such conditions. My boots had slippery rubber soles; in each of Garwood’s were just two nails. We had neither rope nor stick, our single implement being a small geological hammer. It may be imagined, therefore, that our further progress was made slowly and with much precaution. Ultimately we gained the middle of the glacier, and saw up it to the rocks of what afterwards proved to be Horn Sunds Tind disappearing into cloud. A few days later (19th) we returned better equipped, but in weather no wise improved. That time we crossed Kittiwake Glacier to its right bank, where are the red rocks which Garwood once hoped would prove to be Devonian. They were an utter disappointment, and he turned from them in disgust. Beyond came a slope of screes, and then the next and smaller glacier, which likewise has a splintered sea-front, almost joining that of the great Horn Glacier at the head of the sound. We climbed on to a commanding hummock and gazed inland. Horn Glacier is wide and of gentle slope, with hills of small elevation immediately north of it as far as we could see. From the south it receives two or three considerable tributaries, divided from one another by mountain ranges of decided form, whose bases alone were disclosed. The island is here only about sixteen miles wide. My idea was to make a dash across and locate the position and direction of the watershed, which is probably near the east coast, but in such weather nothing could have been seen. A few miles inland fog rested on the snow.

The inner part of the sound and the north bay were dotted over with quantities of floating ice-blocks, fallen from various glacier-fronts, and steadily drifting out to sea with the tide. It was near midnight, and the sky was tinted with sunset tones just visible through thin places in the roof of cloud, as we returned to camp. Only hunger reconciled us to the sight of the tents, for the sea was rising with the tide, and at high water we must get afloat and move away to one of the more sheltered places round to the east beyond the point. Everything was duly packed, the boat loaded, and all was ready, but we could not get her afloat. Work as we might she would turn broadside to the waves, and nothing would keep her straight. Two oars were broken in the attempt. Then we unloaded her again and tried to get her off empty, but that was no easier. The weather was continually worsening, and our struggles became desperate; it was all wasted labour. A bigger wave than usual at last broke into and filled the boat, rendering her utterly unmanageable. There was nothing for it but to unpack everything and pitch camp again. The tide presently going down, the boat was once more left high and dry, so that at six in the morning we were able to turn in.

During the night Garwood was inspired with a new plan for hauling up the boat. To me it did not seem promising, but, as a matter of fact, it worked. Acting under his instructions, the three of us set our backs under the bows and shoved them transversely a few inches uphill, then under the stern and did the same. The double process moved her about one inch. It was repeated again and again. After two hours’ work we had the satisfaction of seeing the boat well above high-water mark. But long before the time for high tide the waves, now grown large and thunderous, were almost up to her, and we had to go at her again as before and gain another few yards.

The weather was miserable. Clouds lay almost upon the water. When the tide turned we went for a walk inland to the foot of Goose Glacier and up its right bank, following the route by which in the previous year Garwood had approached the foot of Mount Hedgehog in exactly similar weather. We kept on up the glacier for some way, and the clouds became a little more broken as the distance from the sea increased. There even came a momentary hole in them, at the end of which a point of rock appeared with a stone man upon it. “There is the rock on which we camped last year,” cried Garwood, “and there’s the cairn we built.” I only had time to identify it before the fog embraced and hid it once more. After that there was nothing to be seen. Rain fell, wind blew, and we turned homeward.

When the bay came in sight we perceived that conditions were not improved. There was no wind in Goose Haven itself, but a heavy swell was coming in from the open sea, breaking right over the rocks that make the little cove where we landed on Hofer Point, and tossing towers of spray into the air. I measured one of them by comparison with the cliff beside it, and found it to be fifty feet in height. A little anxious about our camp and boat, we hurried down and found them threatened by the inroading waves, already at half-tide reaching above the previous high-tide mark. The tents were quickly moved twenty yards farther inland. All the baggage was carried after them, and then came another turn at the boat, which was finally brought to a position of safety. Long before that was accomplished the place where the tents had been pitched was deeply covered by the boiling surf. Drenched with rain and generally disgusted, we turned in about the middle of the morning of the 17th.

CHAPTER X
ASCENT OF MOUNT HEDGEHOG

After breakfast in the afternoon of August 17, as things looked a little better, we loaded ourselves with provisions, instruments, &c., and decided to make an expedition at all events to the base of Mount Hedgehog, and thence perhaps back to Horn Sound by way of Kittiwake Glacier. It was 8.30 P.M. when we set forth, all three in far from hopeful humour. We retraced the steps of the previous day, passing the ruined cookery, and going over undulating ground and up the right bank of Goose Glacier, then crossing the foot of a small side glacier, which brings down a moraine of grey marble streaked with pink, and so reaching the open ice where Garwood’s cairn came into view. Last year hidden crevasses were troublesome hereabouts, but there was no such danger now. Crevasses were either open or covered with firm roofs of frozen snow. We roped, of course, but the rope was not required—fortunately not, for Nielsen disliked and distrusted it, and would not keep it tight, ultimately refusing to wear it any longer and preferring to go detached. Give him rocks or the sea, he said; as for ice and snow he knew nothing about them, and did not feel safe on them, roped or unroped. Overhead was the usual roof of cloud. Gradually, as we advanced and left the coast behind, we perceived the roof was becoming thinner. Small holes began to appear, with faint suggestions of rock behind them. Our excitement increased, for Garwood knew that they were the rocks of Mount Hedgehog’s great precipice. Thinner and thinner became the veil of mist as we walked expectant over the hard-frozen névé, the mountain behind becoming every moment more clearly disclosed, till at last it was fully revealed to us, a glorious wall of silver-dusted rock with the crimson fires of heaven falling like a mantle upon it. It was about midnight, two days before the sun’s first setting. The radiant orb was upon the north horizon, half-buried in the fog above which we were rising. A flood of crimson light flowed from it over all mountains that rose above the clouds, so that every rock was like a glowing coal, whilst the snow-domes resembled silken cushions.

Now at length I realized the position and nature of that Horn Sunds Tind of which I had heard and read so much. It is not a peak, nor a mountain, but a range of peaks running, not parallel to Horn Sound, as marked on the chart, but at right-angles to it and almost north and south. At the north end of the range is the highest point, a needle of rock very similar to the Aiguille du Dru in form. This is separated by a deep depression from the larger, but, as we afterwards learnt, lower, mountain-mass to which we have attached the old name, Mount Hedgehog, originally given to the whole range by its English discoverers. Of this mass the culminating point is at its south end. From it there descends to the west a steep rock rib, ending below in a shattered little peak, beyond which comes a snow-saddle. The west ridge rises slightly again to a rock mound (Bastion Point), falls to another and wider snow-saddle, and is thence continued as a splintered rocky range, forming the left bank of the branch of Goose Glacier up which we had come. It was upon an outlier of Bastion Point that Garwood and his party encamped last year. We found their tent-platform as fresh as if it had only just been abandoned. Garwood affectionately identified the various empty tins lying about and was lucky enough to find his own pocket-compass uninjured where it had been forgotten. In the neighbouring cairn were the records of their climb, a separate one written by each member of the party.

There was no doubt in our minds what next thing demanded doing. We must climb the peak above, while the chance offered, for the sky overhead was brilliantly clear; there was no wind and no apparent change of weather impending. Sea, shore, lowlands, and glaciers were unfortunately buried beneath the floor of clouds, but all hills over 1000 feet high were likely to be disclosed, so that the view would be of great geographical interest. Nielsen preferred not to accompany our ascent, so we gave him the plane-table and whatever else could not be carried further. At 12.30 A.M. (August 18) we parted in opposite directions, Nielsen going back to camp, we two upward to the broad snow col between Bastion Point and the foot of the great west ridge.

Before describing the ascent it is advisable to show the rather special importance attaching to it. In the year 1823 Sir Edward (then Captain) Sabine was sent to Spitsbergen and East Greenland to make pendulum observations for determining the figure of the earth. From what he observed on that brief visit he was led to conclude that Spitsbergen is a land-area excellently adapted to the purpose of measuring an arc of the meridian in a high latitude, a measurement which would be of the utmost value for well-known scientific reasons not in this place needing discussion. It is enough here to say that Sabine set forth his ideas in a letter (February 8, 1826) addressed to Davies Gilbert, M.P., Vice-President of the Royal Society. From that day to this the proposal has not been lost sight of, but before an elaborately accurate measurement of a line some 240 miles in length could be undertaken it was necessary to decide upon the various points to be used for the angles of the trigonometrical net. This could only be done after Spitsbergen itself had been roughly surveyed. The first definite step toward carrying out Sabine’s project was made by Professor Otto Torell,[12] who included in the plans of the Swedish Spitsbergen expedition of 1861 a reconnaissance of the meridian-arc. The work was to be divided between two ships, the Æolus and the Magdalena. Chydenius on the Æolus was to lay out the northern part of the line and select the points of observation from the Seven Islands down to the south end of Hinloopen Strait, whilst Dunér on the Magdalena was to complete the preparations down Wybe Jans Water to the South Cape. Owing to unfavourable ice conditions the work could not be wholly accomplished in that year. Another Swedish expedition was accordingly sent out in 1864, under Nordenskiöld’s leadership, with Dunér to pay special attention to the geognostic observations. The result of these efforts was the suggestion of three different meridian-arcs: (1) along the west coast from South Cape to Vogelsang Island; (2) down the middle of the island by way of Wijde Bay, Ice Fjord, Bell Sound, and Horn Sound; (3) from Ross Island (north of the Seven Islands) to the South Cape by way of the east coast, Hinloopen Strait, and North-East Land. The third of these was the line recommended. It has, however, never been run, because the sea east of Spitsbergen is seldom easily navigable and the number of fine days are few. Moreover, in order to link together the triangles set out in Wybe Jans Water with those of Hinloopen Strait, observations must be made from a high hill in the midst of Garwood Land close to the furthest point reached by us this year from Klaas Billen Bay. Professor Nordenskiöld himself informed me that the existence of a hill commanding the necessary distant views had been to him doubtful, though he believed that they had identified as one and the same the apparently highest point of a range of mountains seen from three different points near the east coast (Svanberg, the White Mountain, and Mount Lovén). That such a mountain does in fact exist (and even more than one) was discovered and proved by us this year. The surpassing eminence of Horn Sunds Tind, dominating as it does the whole southern region of Spitsbergen, visible from the west coasts of Edges Land and Barents Land, and easily recognisable when and whence soever seen, indicated its summit as the best point for observations but the mountain was believed to be inaccessible. It was also believed that other useful mountain peaks might exist in the interior of the south part of the island between Horn Sound and Ice Fjord, by use of which as trigonometrical stations the necessity of visiting ice-blocked Wybe Jans Water might be avoided. One of the minor purposes of Herr Gustaf Nordenskiöld’s expedition of 1890 was to pay attention to these matters. He accordingly landed in Horn Sound and made a rapid journey across the glaciers and mountains between that point and the so-called Recherche Bay in Bell Sound.[13] He concluded that Horn Sunds Tind and the mountains of similar structure north of Horn Sound were inaccessible, and therefore could not be used as trigonometrical stations. Our discovery that Horn Sunds Tind is probably visible from the Three Crowns added greatly to its importance as a possible trigonometrical station. Thus it was now become a matter of unusual interest to discover a way to its summit.

An easy ascent up a snow incline brought us to the rocks of the little peak in which the west arête of Mount Hedgehog has its lower termination. They are broken rocks, lying at a steep angle. Deep, new, hard-frozen snow filled up their interstices and made the ascent very laborious, though quite easy. From the top of the little peak we looked abroad over the sea of cloud, beneath which we knew the ocean must lie, though no trace of it was visible to the remotest horizon. The surface of cloud was generally level but undulating, the crests of its motionless waves dyed pink by the midnight sun, the troughs filled with blue shadows. Straight ahead rose the steep splintered rock-ridge to the desired summit. On our right of it stretched up a broad ice-couloir, narrowing above to a snow-saddle close below the peak, and broadening below to Hedgehog Glacier, which flows almost due south to the sea, and along whose left bank lie the row of lesser peaks forming the continuation of Horn Sunds Tind. Last year Garwood led his party up this couloir, keeping close to the rocks of the arête by its right (north) side. There was no better way, so we went down to the col east of our little peak, and attacked the snow-slope beyond, Garwood leading now and throughout the ascent.

I was astonished, on approaching the couloir, to hear the mountain, as it were, singing over all its precipitous face. The cause of the sound was not apparent; it resembled the noise of waterfalls. The bonds of frost were, however, strong upon the mountain and must have held it for many days in a thawless grip, so that I could not believe there was any water to fall. Once in the couloir the mystery was explained. The sound arose from a cascade of fragments of ice, varying in size from a nut to a hen’s egg. We soon found out their cause and whence they came. Fine snow crystals formed in upper regions of the air, so different from the large flakes of lower levels, had been flung by the gale upon the crags. Hour after hour and doubtless day after day the bombardment continued. The flying icy dust clung to the rocks, and, being constantly added to, built itself up into feathery icicles pointing towards the wind. Where there had been a constant eddy it was shown by the changed direction of the icicles. They were only an inch or two long low down, but the higher we climbed the larger we found them to be, till near the top they became splendid plumes eighteen inches long or more and of the loveliest forms, like ostrich-feathers glittering with diamond dust. It was these icicles, detached from above by the leverage of their overgrown length, and smashed into smaller fragments as they fell, that filled the air with the sibilant, rushing sound which seemed like the noise of many waters. Throughout the ascent we had to run the gauntlet of these missiles, and were often hit, and hit hard, but never so severely that it mattered. They were not big enough to knock us out of our steps, whilst, once they had taken their first bound from the rocks, they kept close to the slope, so that they seldom flew by at a level higher than our waists.

Last year Garwood had escaped this particular annoyance, but instead had found the couloir in a rotten condition with soft snow lying upon ice, so that he had to cut steps through the snow into the ice from the very start. This year, the snow being hard-frozen, step-cutting did not commence till some way further up. Garwood started with hopes that much of it might be avoided by scrambling up the rocks of the arête, but the ice-covering on them rendered that impracticable, or, at the least, highly dangerous. Across the foot of the couloir stretched two of the inevitable deep crevasses or bergschrunds which every couloir boasts. Under the conditions they were, of course, well bridged, and presented no difficulty. Bonds of frost likewise held the rocks together, so that not a stone fell across the route of our ascent. In warm weather, and especially after midday, falling stones must be very common here, nor do I see how they can be avoided, for they rake every possible line of ascent.

Once really in the couloir, step-cutting became necessary, at first mere slicing of the frozen snow, but all too soon laborious hacking into hard blue ice. We kept close to the rocks and could sometimes advance a step or two by jamming the foot into the crack between rocks and ice. Such relief was rare. I calculated that Garwood cut altogether five hundred ice-steps in the couloir. This does not include snow-steps below it or on the final ridge. Garwood made them small and far apart, whilst I enlarged them into regular shelves to last against our return. The view, when we turned round to look at it in breathing intervals, was restricted, for the walls of the couloir shut out everything except the prospect over the cloud-covered ocean, which remained from hour to hour bathed in the pink light of sunset or sunrise. The sun flung the blue shadow of our peak far out upon the cloud-floor. When we were fairly high up, the shadow of the summit became tipped with red, which, as we mounted higher, developed into a series of four concentric rainbows, apparently lying on the clouds in the remote distance and haloing the shadow of the peak. This effect, as may well be believed, was remarkable enough; but even more unusual, to my eyes, was the appearance of what I can only describe as two radiantly white roads of brightness, stretching directly away from us straight out to the horizon, one on either side of the mountain’s shadow, and each making an angle of about 37°, with a line from the eye to the centre of the rainbows, or 143° round from the sun. All the rest of the cloud-floor was still mottled in blue and pink, though the pink was now growing faint, and the general tone was becoming blue-grey; the two “roads” alone were snow-white by contrast.

The higher we rose the steeper was the couloir, the harder the ice, and the greater the cold. The distance from the glacier below steadily increased; to look down upon it was like looking down a wall. The distance to the skyline above did not seem to diminish correspondingly. We came to the point where Garwood had led his companions on to the rocks last year. We, however, kept on up the ice. Then we were level with last year’s highest. It had been estimated at about eighty feet below the summit, as far as the fog enabled a guess to be made; now in perfectly clear air we saw that very much more than eighty feet remained to be climbed. A strip of rocks, above on our right, descended into the couloir from the final snow arête at its top. We cut a long staircase diagonally across to them up a yet steeper ice-slope than any before. They proved to be nothing worse than rather steep screes encumbered with ice. We scrambled up them to the final ridge, a real knife-edge of snow of the giddiest description, for on the other side the mountain wall plunged vertically, as it seemed, 3000 feet down into the floor of cloud below. Here we entered the sunshine, and the view toward Edges Land burst upon us, but we scarcely looked at it. There was not a cloud in the sky; we should see it better from the top, and to that our attention was anxiously turned. It was still 100 feet above our heads. A thread-like snow-ridge of astonishing delicacy led steeply up to the final tooth of rock. Carefully we advanced, planting our feet on the very crest of the ridge, which had to be trodden down before it was broad enough to stand upon. Here and there overhanging cornices had to be avoided; but only care was required, there was no real difficulty. In a few minutes we touched the foot of the summit rock. It was a plumb vertical wall, perhaps fifteen feet high. I suppose we might have climbed straight up it, but an easier way was found. The rock was cloven in half from top to bottom by a crack just wide enough to squeeze through sideways if we expelled our breath and made ourselves thin. On the other side of it was a ledge giving easy access to the highest point, on which we laid our hands with a great feeling of joy. The ascent had taken five hours from the foot of the couloir.

To express the beauty of the view that now surrounded us surpasses my powers. A bare statement of its character and extent is all that I shall attempt to set down. The lowlands, bays, and wide glaciers were alike buried beneath the floor of cloud, so that much of the geographical information which else might have been obtained was withheld. Only in the south-east was there any sea or coast-line visible, an appearance of low-lying flat land, which may indeed have been merely a shadow upon water. The whole of Edges Land was in cloud, but Barents Land was sharp and clear, with all its peaks quite distinct and easy of identification, had one but known what to identify. Here, too, the waters of Wybe Jans Water were disclosed with the sunshine lying brightly upon them, and the long east coast of Spitsbergen leading in that direction. Everywhere else were only peaks rising like golden islands out of a silver sea. A row of such, the tops of a range of hills, ran close by us down the middle of the land towards the South Cape. In the north was a chaos of peaks, those near at hand lying in north and south rows, but the remoter ones dotted about on no discoverable plan. We identified the peaks about Bell Sound, and Mount Starashchin at the mouth of Ice Fjord, but of hills more remote we could be sure of none. So much for the distance and background of the view; its great glory, however, was in the craggy ridge of Horn Sunds Tind itself, along which we looked both to north and south. Southward it sank rapidly, but in the opposite direction it reared itself into successive jagged peaks rising out of a narrow zigzag ridge of precipitous rock. Alas! we were not on the highest point; that was now seen to be the splendid needle further north, divided from Mount Hedgehog by a deep gap, and perhaps surpassing it in height by as much as forty feet. All the rocks of this glorious ridge were covered with ice-feathers, whereon the sun shone with great brilliancy, whilst a bold shadow clothed the whole west face of the mountain. The zigzagging of the ridge brought the bright and shadowed sides into alternate prominence, and led the eye agreeably along to the sudden jut of the culminating needle. How beautifully this wonderful group of bold, snow-decked crags was enframed by the bright effulgence of the cloudy sea and its emergent islands any one can imagine better than I can say. The effect on the spectator was heightened by the sense of standing high and alone, for, save along the knife-edged ridge, the mountain fell from our feet with such utter abruptness as to seem everywhere vertical, so that we had the sensation of looking from a balloon rather than of standing upon the solid earth.

We now observed that a very fine range of peaks, striking inland northward from the west side of Horn Sound’s north bay, is the orographical continuation of Horn Sunds Tind, the sound itself having been cut right through this ridge. No visitor to Horn Sound can fail to notice the remarkable end peak of this ridge, which rises from the sea, a rock-blade of the narrowest description, one side very steep, the other plumb-vertical. Numberless birds nest in the lower part of its cliffs, inaccessible alike to men and foxes.

Tearing ourselves away from the summit and its entrancing view, when at last we were almost frozen stiff, we retreated a few yards down the east face into a little hollow, sheltered from the wind and open to the tepid sun. There a frugal luncheon was eaten and pipes duly smoked, and there we left our cards in a crack, for there were no loose stones out of the snow wherewith to build a cairn, nor, if there had been any, was there room enough on the summit for a cairn to stand. In such raw atmosphere, however, motion is needful for enjoyment, so that neither of us was unwilling to commence the descent. Garwood’s notion of traversing the whole length of Mount Hedgehog’s summit-ridge to its north end and descending by another west arête from that point was silently abandoned. With the mountain in good condition it might be accomplished and enjoyed, but the iced rocks made the attempt not worth consideration. By the way that we came up by the same must we return.

Trotting down the arête to the top of the ice-covered screes was easy enough, but from that point the greatest care was required. Both of us afterwards confessed that we looked forward with trepidation to the descent of these screes, for they were very steep, very loose, and slippery with powdered uncompacting ice. Descents, however, are generally worse in prospect than in actuality, and this was no exception. We hardly realised where the bad place was till it had been passed; but at the foot of the rocks there lurked a quite unforeseen perplexity. Our beautiful ice-staircase had so completely disappeared that for some time we could not discover its position. The steep snow-covered ice-slope was absolutely smooth. No visible inequality broke the evenness of its white surface. With some difficulty I found our old footsteps on the rocks. Standing in them and leaning downward, whilst Garwood held the rope, I probed in all directions for the topmost ice-step. It seemed as though an entirely new staircase would have to be cut. But at last luck revealed the missing hole, which, like all the rest below, was filled up and smoothed over by snow-dust and ice-fragments that had fallen into it. I cleared it out and began the descent. The next step was similarly masked and had to be sought and cleared, though, of course, its position was more easily found. The steps, having been cut as far apart as we could stride, were difficult to reach down to, nor did we venture to tread down a pace till the exact position of the foothold had been discovered. Sometimes new steps had to be cut because the old ones were beyond reach of the axe. It was interesting work which prevented the return from being monotonous, but rendered progress rather slow. When the bergschrund was approached difficulties were at an end. We looked back and found the summit again enveloped in cloud, whilst the sea-fog below was steadily rising. Before we had quitted the rocks of the peaklet at the foot of the ridge we were well into the dense mist, where, in a few yards, we promptly lost our way and had to appeal to the compass for direction. Garwood’s cairn was reached a few minutes later, and our remaining provisions were consumed under its shelter. The descent to camp was without incident. Tired and hungry, we reached it after an absence of fourteen hours, and were delighted to find that the violence of the waves had abated.

It may be of interest to Alpine climbers to compare this ascent with that of some known peak in the Alps. The height of the mountain from the foot of the glacier is about 4500 feet. From the bergschrund at the foot of the couloir to the top is about 3000 feet. The ascent, therefore, from the point where the climb commences is somewhat longer than, and happens to be very similar in character to, the corresponding part of the ascent of the Aiguille Verte[14] in the Mont Blanc range, made by way of the south-east couloir. Horn Sunds Tind, indeed, may be compared in other respects with the Verte group. Mount Hedgehog represents the Verte itself, the west arête corresponds to the Moine ridge, whilst the highest northern needle resembles the Dru, both in position and in form. Some day, no doubt, it will be climbed, though I scarcely think Garwood and I shall return to climb it. Horn Sound appears to be a bad weather region, and we have had enough of its inhospitable shores.

About 7.30 P.M., after a good sleep, we awoke to find the most glorious drama of colour playing for us upon the sound. Already, through ten hours of every night, when thin clouds covered the sky, marvellous long-drawn-out sunset effects brooded over the southern extremity of Spitsbergen. Day by day they were creeping further north, heralds of the long winter night. What we saw that evening was no ordinary sunset of the temperate regions merely extended in duration, but such a sombre splendour as might fitly usher in the fiery consummation of the world. The hidden sun, level with a low, thin roof of cloud, shone both upon its upper and lower surfaces, painting the underside a ruddy brown. Peculiar and unexpected reflections made lights in strange places. The mountains were dark chocolate or rich purple in colour. Lighter chocolate were the glaciers. The fjord was dark-green, shot with pink reflections from above. Away beyond the sea was a belt of clear sky beneath the cloud-roof. Overhead, pink clouds, rent and twisted by some high gale, writhed in an island of blue in the upper regions of the air. New snow whitened the lower hill-slopes. Chilly blasts came and passed, telling of the winter that was at hand.

Late in the evening we breakfasted and packed up camp. Soon after midnight the boat was easily launched in the calm bay. It was our intention to row to the far side of the head of the sound, where there were rocks that Garwood thought might prove worth examination. No sooner, however, was the point of Goose Bay rounded than a strong wind from the north-east met us, against which we could not make headway. Close at hand was a little cove, well protected by rocks, and there we were compelled to land, just forty-eight hours before the steamer was to call and fetch us away.

The doings of these two days are not worth record. They were a time of low clouds and frequent heavy rains. No exploration could be done, because nothing could be seen. We made useless expeditions to Kittiwake Glacier; we scrambled among the Stonehenge Rocks, and otherwise killed time. Thick clouds and the dipping sun made the nights so dark that candles had to be burnt in the tent during several hours. The sea became quite calm; birds seemed to increase in numbers upon the water, as though they were gathering in Horn Sound for their southern flight, just as the whaling fleet in old days used to gather either here or in Bell Sound.

Early on the morning of the 21st, Nielsen called us with news that the Lofoten was in sight. To pack our baggage and launch the boat was the work of a few minutes. We rowed out to the steamer, which took us and our goods on board and promptly headed away for the open sea and the south. As Horn Sound was quitted, the weather temporarily improved. For a moment the clouds broke or lifted, and showed us, for the first time, all the height and width of Horn Sunds Tind—a sight to us most interesting, but not specially impressive in the dull illumination that prevailed. We passed the South Cape at sunset and enjoyed one memorable last look along the west coast, whose peaks and promontories were visible as far away as the Dead Man at the mouth of Ice Fjord. The northern horizon behind them was striped with ruddy and golden radiance. The under side of the everlasting cloud-roof was strangely illuminated with delicate pink light, reflected up to it from the white surface of the interior of Spitsbergen, upon which the low sun contrived to cast its rays just below the northern edge of the cloud-cap—an effect I have never before observed. I have several times seen the underside of Spitsbergen’s cloud-roof shining pink, and always supposed that it reflected direct sunshine; but probably in such cases a preliminary upward reflection of the light from a snowfield may be assumed.

Our voyage was delightfully calm. We saw many whales and hundreds of seals in schools, especially near Bear Island, north-west of whose south point we cast anchor for a few hours in the afternoon of the 22nd. The top of Mount Misery was buried in a soft grey cloud, but the splendid cliffs below were close at hand, with pillared rocks jutting out of the sea at their feet. A heavy swell broke upon the barren island, casting towers of spray aloft. Off shore blew a stiff local breeze that made landing a wet and laborious process, for it was only just possible to row against it. Every one who landed returned to the ship drenched to the skin.

A few miles away from Bear Island the wind dropped and the sea was calm. From hour to hour the temperature rose, so that those of us who had spent any length of time in Spitsbergen felt that we were coming into luxurious and almost tropical latitudes. About sixty miles north of the North Cape two ships under full sail came in sight far away over the calm sea. They were bound from Arkangel, laden with timber for English ports. When they had been left behind, the hills of Norway appeared along the southern horizon. Their low line gradually rose from the bosom of the waters as we approached. The sun foundered into the sea about nine o’clock, just when our ship passed under the North Cape’s beetling cliff and rounded into the sheltered eastern bay, where is a little landing-stage at the foot of a zigzag path leading up a gully to the plateau above. Bay and gully were shrouded in the gloom of evening, but the air was warm and rich with the smell of the land. We rowed ashore, a motley international company. Something like a race was started for the summit of the Cape, which is about 1000 feet above sea-level and a long distance from the landing-place. I see that Bädeker gives seventy minutes for a rational ascent; we most irrationally did it in twenty-eight. It was a merry party that gathered on the top—Belgians, Poles, Hungarians, Swedes, English, Norwegians, men of science, seamen, travellers. Nansen’s Fram crew were represented by three of its members, including the laughter-loving giant, Peter Hendriksen, every one’s butt and playfellow. Bottles were uncorked, and their contents shared round. Rocks were prized down the cliffs. It was a gay hour. Though heated by the uphill race, we could sit without chill on the exposed promontory; for the air to us was full of southern warmth, and felt like the air of hot Italian valleys to a man descending into them from the Alps.

The party soon dispersed, and I found a secluded corner, under the very point, with the northern ocean below. “In such moments Solitude is invaluable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and before him the silent Immensity, and Palace of the Eternal”—thus thought Teufelsdrökh, as he stood on this particular spot one June midnight, clothed in his “light-blue Spanish cloak” and looking “like a little blue Belfry.” “Silent Immensity and Palace of the Eternal!”—the words are not too strong for the wonder of that view. There was no midnight sun to look upon; a spot of brightness in the midst of the orange and crimson north showed where, far beneath the horizon, it was looking abroad over the cloud-covered arctic world. The delicate crescent of the new moon beamed not far away, with a single planet near it. Straight from my feet plunged the splendid cliff to the measureless stretch of the Arctic Sea. In the east, air, ocean, and clouds merged together in a harmony of tender violet, so soft, so rare of tint, that the eye, once turned thither, was loath to wander again. A faint low promontory of land, dividing sky from sea, lured the fancy onward to the regions of romance—Novaja-Zemlja, the Kara Sea, and the way of the North-East Passage. Not thitherward was our way, but home. By noon we were again in Hammerfest.

CHAPTER XI
ON THE USE OF SKI

Since Nansen published his book, “The First Crossing of Greenland,” the English public has known of ski and their use. Ski (pronounced shee) are Norwegian snowshoes, now admitted to be the best form of snowshoe in the world. They are long, narrow planks for fastening one under each foot, so as to distribute over an area of soft snow, many times larger than the area of the foot, the weight of a man walking. They not only prevent him from sinking into the snow, but, if it is in suitable condition, they enable him to slide along on its surface. The common idea in England is that the art of using ski is very difficult of acquisition. This, as I shall show, is a mistake. No doubt the almost miraculous expertness attained by the best Norwegian and Swedish skisters (to coin a needed word) is beyond reach of ordinary Englishmen, who take to the sport when they are full grown and have rare opportunities for practising it. But for purposes of mere travel far less skill is required.

In fact, it is with skiing as it is with skating. Any person, with normal habits of exercise and control over his limbs, can learn to skate in a few days well enough to go straight ahead over good ice at a tolerable pace. Within a fortnight of his putting on skates for the first time, he might go a-touring along frozen Dutch canals without being much, if anything, of a hindrance to a companion, the most expert of figure-skaters. To pass the St. Moritz test as a figure-skater takes months or even years of practice, but that is to learn the art, not the mere craft of skating. So it is with skiing. The artist skister can race down steep slopes at an appalling velocity, leaping drops or crefts of almost incredible dimensions. A traveller who needs ski for the purpose of exploring the great snowy areas of the world has no occasion to acquire skill of that pre-eminent character. He is not called upon to advance faster than a sledge can be dragged by men or dogs, as the case may be, and that he can learn to accomplish in a very short time. Sliding downhill is a little more difficult; but any climber, who can make standing glissades with facility, soon learns to glissade on ski down any ordinary slope of snow.

When Garwood and I landed in Norway last year, we had never seen a pair of ski, and did not know where to buy or how to choose them. During the summer we travelled over 150 miles on ski, dragging our sledges behind us. Later on we went to Stockholm and saw all manner of ski in the Exhibition there, and availed ourselves of every opportunity that came in our way to obtain information about ski and everything connected with them. We soon learnt that there are ski of all sorts and kinds. They differ in the material of which they are made, and they differ in form. I am told that ash is the best material to make them of. The points to be seen to are the straightness of the grain and the absence of knots. Lightness is less important for a traveller than strength.

The questions of form and size are determined by the purpose for which the ski are to be used. Speaking generally, narrow ski are faster than broad of the same area. In soft snow, however, the advantage vanishes, for narrow ski sink in more deeply than broad; indeed, for very soft snow, ski require to be both broad and long. The edges and the hinder ends may be either rounded or cut off square. For hill climbing it is certain that the squarer the angle of section of edges and hinder ends the better, seeing they take a better hold of the snow, and prevent sliding sideways or backwards; sharp edges also make steering easier on hard snow. Relatively short, broad ski, are best for hill climbing, and, in general, for the work of a traveller. They are easier to advance on, easier to steer, and easier to turn round with. Their length may be anything from two to one and a half metres, two metres for choice; they should measure eight centimetres at the narrowest part under the foot, increasing forward to from nine to ten centimetres at the broadest part, just where the toe of the ski begins to turn up. The front ends should be well turned up, the points being raised from twelve to fifteen centimetres above the level of a horizontal plane on which the ski stand. Such ski are of the Telemark type, and can be bought under the name “Telemark ski,” from the Scandinavian manufacturers. A good pair, made of selected ash, costs about fifteen shillings.