solid ice between them, and we followed
the edge of the ice. All the morning we went north along the land
against a strong current. There seemed to be no end to this land. Its
discrepancy with every known map grew more and more remarkable, and
I was in no slight dilemma. We had for long been far to the north of
the most northern island indicated by Nordenskioeld. [29] My diary
this day tells of great uncertainty. "This land (or these islands,
or whatever it is) goes confoundedly far north. If it is a group of
islands they are tolerably large ones. It has often the appearance of
connected land, with fjords and points; but the weather is too thick
for us to get a proper view. ... Can this that we are now coasting
along be the Taimur's Island of the Russian maps (or more precisely,
Lapteff's map), and is it separated from the mainland by the broad
strait indicated by him, while Nordenskioeld's Taimur Island is what
Lapteff has mapped as a projecting tongue of land? This supposition
would explain everything, and our observations would also fit in with
it. Is it possible that Nordenskioeld found this strait, and took it
for Taimur Strait, while in reality it was a new one; and that he saw
Almquist's Islands, but had no suspicion that Taimur Island lay to
the outside of them? The difficulty about this explanation is that the
Russian maps mark no islands round Taimur Island. It is inconceivable
that any one should have travelled all about here in sledges without
seeing all these small islands that lie scattered around. [30]

"In the afternoon the water-gauge of the boiler got choked up; we had
to stop to have it repaired, and therefore made fast to the edge of the
ice. We spent the time in taking in drinking-water. We found a pool on
the ice, so small that we thought it would only do to begin with; but
it evidently had a "subterranean" communication with other fresh-water
ponds on the floe. To our astonishment it proved inexhaustible, however
much we scooped. In the evening we stood in to the head of an ice bay,
which opened out opposite the most northern island we then had in
sight. There was no passage beyond. The broken drift-ice lay packed
so close in on the unbroken land-ice that it was impossible to tell
where the one ended and the other began. We could see islands still
farther to the northeast. From the atmosphere it seemed as if there
might also be open water in that direction. To the north it all looked
very close,