nd icy
ridge, showing no gap whatever or means of getting through it toward the
sea.

The valleys they still kept on passing, away east, gave plenty of
promise of deer, so that, even if kept prisoners for some time, there
did not appear to be any lack of food; but the other side was the more
eagerly scanned by the Norsemen, who had the walrus harpoons, ropes, and
lances lying ready to hand, and who longed to wield them again.

The party did not attempt to land, but travelled on for miles, and
always through plenty of water, passing at last a likely-looking chasm
on their left, through which ran a narrow, zigzagging, deep-looking
canal; and in the hope that this might prove to be a way through to the
west coast, it was left for the time being, while they pushed on for a
mile or two farther. Here they came upon an unmistakable passage
through a rocky defile, whose bottom was clear, dark water, going right
on as far as they could see, while, leaving this too so as to finish the
exploration of the main fiord first, they rowed on once more. At last,
turning a headland, they came suddenly in view of a magnificent sight
from the point of view of a lover of nature, but a terribly damping one
to a captain whose ship was caught in a trap; for there, about a mile
away, and spreading from side to side of the fiord, whose blue waters
touched its foot, was another grand glacier, which looked from the
distance like a frozen cataract, flowing down from high up in the
mountains, to empty its solid waters into the fiord.

"No way out," said the captain, after a few minutes' examination of the
great glacier with his glass; and he handed it to the doctor, who was
fain to confess that the fiord was sealed up there as effectually as at
the other end.

"It's very grand," he said with a sigh, "magnificent; but rather a dash
to your hopes."

"Back again!" said the captain, after Steve had had his survey as well,
and longed to be rowed close up to the blue ice grottoes he could see at
the foot of the glacier, beyond which many peaks towered up while the
land was scored with valleys.

The oars dipped again in the blue water, and they rowed back to the
rugged defile they had left to explore on their return.

Here the prospects were more cheerful as far as the boat was concerned;
and they rowed at once into a chasm which seemed to be one vast rift
through the mountain, as if torn open by some convulsion of nature.

There was plenty of r