As they went along, the Doctor often picked up stones, both round ones and flat pebbles, as if worn away by the tide. He thought from this they must be near the Polar Basin, and yet far as the eye could reach was one interminable plain.
There was not a trace of houses, or huts, or cairns visible. It was evident that the Greenlanders had not pushed their way so far north, and yet the famished tribes would have found their account in coming, for the country abounded in game. Bears were frequently seen, and numerous herds of musk-oxen and deer.
[Illustration: Bell killed a fox and Altamont a musk-ox.-P.192]
On the 29th, Bell killed a fox and Altamont a musk-ox. These supplies of fresh food were very acceptable, and even the Doctor surveyed, with considerable satisfaction, the haunches of meat they managed to procure from time to time.
"Don't let us stint ourselves," he used to say on these occasions; "food is no unimportant matter in expeditions like ours."
"Especially," said Johnson, "when a meal depends on a lucky shot."
"You're right, Johnson; a man does not think so much about dinner when he knows the soup-pot is simmering by the kitchen-fire."
On the 30th, they came to a district which seemed
[Illustration: ]
to have been upturned by some volcanic convulsion, so covered was it with cones and sharp lofty peaks.