ice-world that had been so still before seemed in a moment to have
been transformed into a raging bedlam. Any moment we might expect
to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat, or to be heaved up
and capsized. Something of this kind was the very least that could
happen after such a terrible commotion. But the hurly-burly went on
and nothing came of it. I again picked out my victims. They went on
bellowing and grunting like the others, but with blood streaming from
their mouths and noses. Another ball, and one tumbled over and floated
on the water; now a ball to the second, and it did the same. Henriksen
was ready with the harpoons, and secured them both. One more was shot;
but we had no more harpoons, and had to strike a seal-hook into it
to hold it up. The hook slipped, however, and the animal sank before
we could save it. While we were towing our booty to an ice-floe we
were still, for part of the time at least, surrounded by walruses;
but there was no use in shooting any more, for we had no means of
carrying them off. The Fram presently came up and took our two on
board, and we were soon going ahead along the coast. We saw many
walruses in this part. We shot two others in the afternoon, and could
have got many more if we had had time to spare. It was in this same
neighborhood that Nordenskioeld also saw one or two small herds.

We now continued our course, against a strong current, southward along
the coast, past the mouth of the Chatanga. This eastern part of the
Taimur Peninsula is a comparatively high, mountainous region, but with
a lower level stretch between the mountains and the sea--apparently
the same kind of low land we had seen along the coast almost the
whole way. As the sea seemed to be tolerably open and free from ice,
we made several attempts to shorten our course by leaving the coast
and striking across for the mouth of the Olenek; but every time thick
ice drove us back to our channel by the land.

On September 14th we were off the land lying between the Chatanga and
the Anabara. This also was fairly high, mountainous country, with
a low strip by the sea. "In this respect," so I write in my diary,
"this whole coast reminds one very much of Jaederen, in Norway. But
the mountains here are not so well separated, and are considerably
lower than those farther north. The sea is unpleasantly shallow;
at one time during the night we had only 4 fathoms, and were obliged
to put back some distance. We have i