A distinct contrast to these stormy days was given by the period of clear sunshine. Then the sky, innocent of a cloud, was a wonderful blue vault overhead, while the snow-covered plateau stretched away on all sides until it was lost in the distance of the horizon. The wonderfully clear air enabled the explorers to see a great distance ahead. At the end of the second day's march after reaching this great snow desert, they found that the surface was gradually sloping north and south. They were on the dividing ridge and, as they passed over on to the downward slope, their progress was naturally at a more rapid rate. A storm, such as has been described, accompanied by falling snow, overtook them, and for three days they had to stay in their shelter. When at length the weather moderated and they were able to get out again they discovered, before resuming the journey, that the dogs meanwhile had eaten six pounds of cranberry jam and the foot off one of the sleeping-bags--a fairly good example of a dog's appetite during a snowstorm. On May 31 in magnificently clear weather they looked out upon a scene on which no white man had ever yet gazed. In his description of the journey the leader wrote: "We looked down into the basin of the Petermann Glacier, the greatest amphitheatre of snow and rugged ice that human eye has ever seen." Away beyond it, a range of black mountains towered in dome-shaped hills, and they made their camp with the expectation of being able to see more of the distant range at the end of another march. But by the time they were able to resume their march a thick fog had come into the air, and for three days they could only see the snow at their feet. They directed their course entirely by compass, but as they were unable to see long distances ahead, they were unprepared for a change in the surface. Before they could avoid it, they found themselves amongst rough ice and open crevices. They were getting on to the Sherard Osborne Glacier, and, in the misty weather they were experiencing, it was difficult to get back on to the smooth ice again. Over a fortnight was spent in getting beyond this rough ground, and at length, on the weather clearing, they found that straight ahead of them a range of hills showed along the horizon above the ice-cap. The appearance of the hills directly in their path decided them to turn their course from due east to south-east, and they were soon able to make out the line of a deep channel running from the north-east to the south-west.