Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XVI. Ice-bound in the Arctic Sea
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To the music of the howling dogs and the yelling natives
our caravan started at breakneck speed from the island.
Every now and then a dog would slip and lose its
footing on the smooth ice, and sprawling over on its back
or side would be dragged along in this fashion for some
distance by the others. As we proceeded, a long range
of huge torosses came in sight—great masses of
heaped-up ice like miniature bergs—which we approached at a
rapid pace. “How on earth are we to get over these?”
I was asking myself, when, lo, we are in the midst of the
foot-hills, so to speak, of the icy mountain-chain in front
of us. The air is filled with the howling of the dogs and
the shouting of the drivers, who yell out their commands to
their teams: “To the left!”—“To the right!.”—“Straight
on!”— while the “dog-chiefs” in front, pricking up their ears
to catch the commands of their masters, turn now to the
left, now to the right between the “torosses,” the sledges
jumping and dancing behind them over huge blocks of ice.
Now we come to the first chain of ice-mountains. Wildly
howling and yelling, the dogs, like a forlorn hope on
the point of assaulting a fortress, rush up the huge
masses of ice and down on the other side. With my
heart in my mouth, and my feet drawn up to protect my
limbs from getting broken—for such an accident would
not have been too pleasant in these regions—I could
hardly tell how this mountain-pass was negotiated before
the whole caravan was safe on the smooth ice once more.
Then a new chain of ice-mountains rises in front of us,
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