The following day we had to make our way as well as we could by paddling short distances in the lanes or hauling our loads over floes smaller or larger, as the case might be. The current, which was running like a mill-race, ground them together in its career. Our progress with our short, stumpy sledges was nothing very great, and of water suitable for paddling in we found less and less. We stopped several times and waited for the ice to open at the turn of the tide, but it did not do so, and on the morning of August 15th we gave it up, turned inward, and took to the shore-ice for good. We set our course westward towards the sound we had seen for several days now, and had struggled so to reach. The surface of the ice was tolerably even and we got over the ground well. On the way we passed a frozen-in iceberg, which was the highest we saw in these parts--some 50 to 60 feet, I should say. [46] I wished to go up it to get a better view of our environment, but it was too steep, and we did not get higher than a third part up the side. "In the evening we at last reached the islands we had been steering for for the last few days, and for the first time for two years had bare land under foot. The delight of the feeling of being able to jump from block to block of granite [47] is indescribable, and the delight was not lessened when in a little sheltered corner among the stones we found moss and flowers, beautiful poppies (Papaver nudicaule) Saxifraga nivalis, and a Stellaria (sp.?). It goes without saying that the Norwegian flag had to wave over this our first bare land, and a banquet was prepared. Our petroleum, meanwhile, had given out several days previously, and we had to contrive another lamp in which train-oil could be used. The smoking hot lobscouse, made of pemmican and the last of our potatoes, was delicious, and we sat inside the tent and kicked the bare grit under us to our heart's content. "Where we are is becoming more and more incomprehensible. There appears to be a broad sound west of us, but what is it? The island [48] we are now on, and where we have slept splendidly (this is written on the morning of August 16th) on dry land, with no melting of the ice in puddles underneath us, is a long moraine-like ridge running about north and south (magnetic), and consists almost exclusively of small and large--generally very large--blocks of stone, with, I should say, occasional stationary crags. The blocks are in a measure rounded off, but I have found no striation on them. The whole island barely rises above the snow-field in which it lies, and which slopes in a gradual decline down to the surrounding ice. On our west there is a bare island, somewhat higher, which we have seen for several days. Along the shore there is a decided strand-line (terrace). North of us are two small islets and a small rock or skerry.