But it was a mistake to term it an ice-cap. They found it to be rather a desert, a Sahara with dry drifting snow instead of the dry burning sand. And, like Sahara, it had its days of storm, when the snow whirled in clouds just as the sand rises before the scorching blast of the simoom. Very wonderful was the first experience of this Greenland dust-storm. The sky overhead was filled with dull grey clouds, heavy and opaque, and the gloom spread all around, so that whichever way one looked there was the same impenetrable veil of grey gloomy haze. The snow lost its dazzling whiteness and took instead the tint of the gloom of the surrounding atmosphere. Then the wind came, at first in fitful gusts but later growing into a steady blow, the opening squalls lifting the dry surface snow and whirling it up in the air. The steady breeze caught it and carried it along in a constantly moving stream some two feet deep, and it was then that the effect of the storm was most pronounced. The drifting particles of snow made a curious rustling noise as they moved, and as they whirled round the travellers' legs the feet were hidden beneath the dense moving veil. As a result, it was as though one were walking on nothing and going nowhere, for the grey gloom all around made one unconscious of either direction or space, and the moving snow prevented one seeing the feet or realising that there was anything solid under them.
The steady hum of the drifting snow, together with its movement, made the brain dizzy, and the two explorers generally found it necessary to form a camp when such a storm came on, the snow soon piling up against their shelter tent and effectually protecting them from the wind. Then, when the breeze had died away and the snow ceased moving, they were able to dig out their sledge and proceed.
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.
On July 1, after fifty-seven days of travel, they came to the limits of the ice-cap and stood, silent and amazed, looking down from the summit of the snow desert across a wide open plain covered with vegetation, with here and there a snow drift showing white, and with herds of musk oxen contentedly grazing over it. Such a discovery was absolutely so unexpected that at first they could scarcely believe their eyes. There was no sign of any human habitation on the land, and for all that could be learned to the contrary, they were the first human beings who had ever trodden upon that plain, on which the yellow Arctic poppies were waving in bloom and over which the drone of the humble bee sounded, though for hundreds of miles around it the accumulated snow of centuries lay frozen into the great mysterious snow-cap and its glaciers.
Having proved that they really were not dreaming, they shot a musk ox, which they used for their own and their dogs' refreshment. Then they stacked their stores and set out with reduced loads across the plain. They walked for four days, exploring, surveying, and examining; and on the fourth of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by the United States, they stood on the summit of a magnificent range of cliffs, 3500 feet high, overlooking a large bay, which, in honour of the date, they named Independence Bay.
The latitude was nearly 82° N., and Lieutenant Peary, writing of the discovery, says: "It was almost impossible for us to believe that we were standing on the northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the summit of this precipitous cliff with the most brilliant sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies growing between the rocks around our feet and a herd of musk oxen in the valley behind us. In that valley we had also found the dandelion in bloom and had heard the heavy drone and seen the bullet-like flight of the humble bee."
For a week the two remained in this northern valley, surveying and making observations and finding it difficult to believe that a distance of 600 miles of frozen snow separated them from the nearest living people. Not a vestige of a human habitation was found, and nothing to show that man had ever been there before. At the end of the week, with a good supply of fresh meat from the musk oxen and a collection of specimens of plants and insects packed on the sledges, the return journey was commenced. Both dogs and men were invigorated by the rest they had had, and they were able to travel homewards at the rate of thirty miles a day over the smooth surface of the ice-cap.
They carefully adhered to a recognised routine of work. When they had travelled the regulation number of hours they halted for their rest. The one whose turn it was to prepare the supper set to work to arrange what they termed their kitchen, while the other attended to the dogs, feeding them and removing them from their harness. The "kitchen" was constructed by removing snow in blocks from a space eight feet long by three feet wide by eighteen inches deep. The snow-blocks were built up along one side and half another, so as to form an angle presented towards that quarter from whence the wind was blowing. Over the top of this a canvas was stretched, forming a well-sheltered nook, in which the spirit stove was lighted and the meal prepared. For supper they had usually, half a pound of pemmican (a preparation of finely chopped lean meat with raisins and wheaten flour), one cup of preserved milk, tea, and biscuits. The morning meal, or breakfast, consisted of pemmican, biscuits, two ounces of butter, and two cups of tea, and after travelling from four to six hours, they stopped for lunch, which consisted of more pemmican and tea.
As soon as supper was ready the two enjoyed it together, and very soon afterwards they crept into their sleeping-bags, the one who was acting as cook having also to keep an eye on the dogs, in order to prevent them making attacks on the stores. To obviate this, after the first few days, the dogs were usually tethered for the night.