My eyes that
night were like a fountain of tears. For the firm land is health and
sanity, and dear to the life of man; but I say that the great ungenial
ice is a nightmare, and a blasphemy, and a madness, and the realm of the
Power of Darkness.
* * * * *
I knew that I was at Franz Josef Land, somewhere or other in the
neighbourhood of C. Fligely (about 82 deg. N.), and though it was so late,
and getting cold, I still had the hope of reaching Spitzbergen that
year, by alternately sailing all open water, and dragging the kayak over
the slack drift-ice. All the ice which I saw was good flat fjord-ice,
and the plan seemed feasible enough; so after coasting about a little,
and then three days' good rest in the tent at the bottom of a ravine of
columnar basalt opening upon the shore, I packed some bear and walrus
flesh, with what artificial food was left, into the kayak, and I set out
early in the morning, coasting the shore-ice with sail and paddle. In
the afternoon I managed to climb a little way up an iceberg, and made
out that I was in a bay whose terminating headlands were invisible.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95