7. How vexatious was it to feel, that if we had reached this Land some weeks earlier, we might have explored it without the risk of being cut off from the ship. For some days the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the twilight of noon admitted of only a few short excursions from the ship, quite insufficient to satisfy our earnest desire to learn more of its structure and configuration; and we much feared lest the constant north winds should cause us to drift out of sight of it. Southwards stretched a flat surface of bluish-grey ice, and beyond the distant ship, a large “ice-hole” from whose yellow mirror there arose undulating mists. Beyond this again stretched dark lines of floes running parallel to the horizon, over which, in the south, hung the sky in deep carmine. We scrambled over a rugged slope covered with ice as smooth as glass, which ran into the interior of the little island, in order to get a clear view northward; but we were compelled to return without achieving our purpose, for we feared to absent ourselves longer from the ship. We accordingly went back, but returned next day to explore. But these barren days and small events made a profound impression on our minds, and even Carlsen, the old and tried navigator of the frozen deep, wore on his breast, beneath his fur coat, the star of the order of St. Olaf, to do due honour to the dignity of discovery. We built a pyramid of stones six feet high on the island, and fixed in it one of our flags attached to a pole. 8. On the 3rd of November a party of us started about eight o’clock in the morning, when it was quite dark, to attempt to reach a glacier which we had seen, on the north of the island and on the other side of a frozen inlet of the sea. We took with us a small sledge drawn by three dogs, and, in constant fear of being cut off from the ship, we pressed on over a level surface of snow towards some objects suffused with a dim rosy light, which seemed to float over them. As we neared them we found them to be icebergs, which sparkled like jewels, and which we took to be the terminal precipice of the glacier we were in search of. It was only, however, after some hours that we came actually in sight of it; the ship having meanwhile disappeared from our view. Suddenly there emerged before us, in the east, a white band, which proved to be the terminal front of the glacier, which, as we approached it, we were surprised to find had an inclination of only two or three degrees. Its highest point, therefore, must have been at a very great distance. On its left side there was a moraine of great depth. When we began our return to the ship, the rosy evening light had disappeared from the higher clouds, while it became clearer behind the gigantic mass of the glacier, so that its dark outline stood out strongly marked on the heavens. It was quite dark when we again drew near the ship, but the brave Carlsen, armed with rifle and walrus-lance for any emergency, came out to meet us.