[Illustration: ICEBERGS AT THE BASE OF THE MIDDENDORF GLACIER.]
5. As we approached the promontory on the south of Crown-Prince Rudolf’s Land, we came upon innumerable icebergs, from one hundred to two hundred feet high, which made an incessant cracking and snapping sound in the sunshine. The Middendorf glacier, with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards the north to a great distance. Deep layers of snow and great rents in the sea-ice, the consequence of the falling-in of icebergs, filled the intervening spaces between them. Into these fissures we were continually falling, drenching our canvas boots and clothes with sea-water. But the aspect of these colossal fragments of glaciers engrossed us to such an extent, that we wandered a long time with unflagging interest among these pyramids, tables, and cliffs. It was only when I sent on Klotz to mark out by his footsteps a path by which we might ascend the Middendorf glacier, that we came to a more open region, and, all putting their strength to the work of dragging, we gained its summit, crossing in our progress many crevasses bridged over with snow. Three of these yawned across the lower part of the glacier, needing but a slight movement of the ice to detach them and transform them into icebergs. Further on, the glacier appeared smooth and free from crevasses, although its inclination amounted to several degrees. Towards the north it seemed as if it might be crossed without excessive exertion, if all took part in the work of dragging. But before we began this part of the day’s work we rested, and recruited ourselves with dinner, and setting up our little tent at about 400 paces above the edge of the glacier, we looked down with feelings of delight on its semi-circular terminal precipice and the gleaming host of icebergs which filled the indentations of the coast. While we were sitting in the tent Klotz made the fatal communication to me, that he was not the man he should be, that for some days his foot had swollen and ulcerated, so that he could walk only in shoes made of hide. However vexatious this mishap, there was nothing for it but to send him back to Hohenlohe Island. Laden with a sack and carrying a revolver, he set off, and soon disappeared from our eyes in the labyrinth of icebergs beneath us.