But No Landing-Place Where It Seemed Possible To
Drag The Canoe Above High-Tide Mark Was Discovered After Examining
A
mile or more of this dreary, forbidding barrier, and as night was
closing down, I decided to try to
Grope my way across the mouth of
the fiord in the starlight to an open sandy spot on which I had
camped in October, 1879, a distance of about three or four miles.
With the utmost caution I picked my way through the sparkling bergs,
and after an hour or two of this nerve-trying work, when I was
perhaps less than halfway across and dreading the loss of the frail
canoe which would include the loss of myself, I came to a pack of
very large bergs which loomed threateningly, offering no visible
thoroughfare. Paddling and pushing to right and left, I at last
discovered a sheer-walled opening about four feet wide and perhaps
two hundred feet long, formed apparently by the splitting of a huge
iceberg. I hesitated to enter this passage, fearing that the
slightest change in the tide-current might close it, but ventured
nevertheless, judging that the dangers ahead might not be greater
than those I had already passed. When I had got about a third of the
way in, I suddenly discovered that the smooth-walled ice-lane was
growing narrower, and with desperate haste backed out. Just as the
bow of the canoe cleared the sheer walls they came together with a
growling crunch.
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