Page:The frozen North; an account of Arctic exploration for use in schools (IA frozennorthaccou00hort).pdf/126

 drawn near enough to make it possible to land. Balto was not very well pleased with his first glimpse of Greenland. In his account of his voyage, he said that the coast had no beauty nor charm to the eye, but was dismal and hideous to look upon; that the mountain peaks were very high and rose like church steeples into the clouds, which hid the summits.

But Nansen thought the coast beautiful. The snow-*covered peaks glittered in the sunlight and extended as far as the eye could reach, while far to the west stretched the vast white plain of inland ice.

On July 17, 1888, as the Jason was not more than ten or twelve miles from the coast of Greenland, Nansen made up his mind to leave the ship. All the baggage was brought on deck, farewells were said, and at seven o'clock in the evening Nansen and his five companions climbed down the ship's ladder and embarked in two boats. The Jason's guns saluted; the Jason's crew cheered. But deep down in their hearts the sailors believed that Nansen and his men were going to certain death. No thought of fear, however, disturbed the brave band. With the exception of Balto and Ravna, they were all delighted to enter upon the perilous journey.

At first everything went well. There were channels of water between the floes, wide enough for the boats to pass through. But soon the ice began to pack, and the boats had to be pulled up upon the floes and dragged across to open water. It was hard to keep the light craft from being crushed between the ice masses. Then the current became so strong that the men were obliged to draw the boats up on a floe, in order to escape from it.

The ice which had collected around them threw the smaller floes upon the larger ones, making the ice uneven