May 18th. Sunday. I went on shore early, and seeing a lot of snow buntings, spent some time looking for their nests, but without result. On the sunny sides of the rocks the snow had gone; there was some dead grass, but indeed the country was, for the most part, covered with it. There were several pairs of ravens about, but I could not find their nests, so I borrowed a pair of skies, and ascending a hill close by, enjoyed the exhilarating sport of sliding down its snowy slope. During the afternoon I made a house-to-house visitation in the native quarter and saw much of interest. The older portion of the population I found at home, but the youth and beauty of the place had gone on board the Aurora. About dinner time I came on board and acquired a further collection of Eskimo ware, including ladies' clothing, for which even my bed curtains were bartered. It was late when I retired for the night, surfeited with the pleasure of my first long day in Greenland.
May 19th. Monday. I wrote letters home this morning and sent them on shore. During the summer they arrived via Copenhagen, having gone by the Danish mail ship which visited the settlement every year.
By breakfast time we were under way. It was a beautiful day. There was a breeze from the southwest, so the ship soon had all her canvas set and we stood away, clear of the land.
The Knights Reef, running out to sea north of Holstenborg, had to be weathered. On the heavy ice around there, we saw a number of walrus, but did not disturb them. By noon we were sailing up the coast amid floe ice, so the canvas was taken off and we steamed slowly through it. A sharp lookout was kept for whales, as we were then on a very good ground for spring fishing, sixty miles from Disco and sixty miles from Riffkol being the neighborhood where the ships in olden times killed fine cargoes.
"With Riffkol hill and Disco Dipping,
There you will find the whale fish skipping,"
is an old saying amongst whalers.
