 13 It was with pleasure that we at last, on September 7, set to work to build our hut. We had selected a good site in the neighborhood, and from this time forward we might have been seen daily, going out in the morning like other laborers, with a can of drinking water in one hand and a gun in the other. We quarried stones up among the debris from the cliff, dragged them together, dug out the site and built walls as well as we could. We had no tools worth mentioning, those we used most were our two hands. The cut-off sledge-runner again did duty as a pick, with which to loosen the fast frozen stones, and when we could not manage to dig up the earth on our site with our hands, we used a snowshoe staff with an iron ferrule. We made a spade out of the shoulder-blade of a walrus tied to a piece of broken snowshoe staff and a maddock out of a walrus tusk tied to the cross-tree of a sledge. They were poor things to work with, but we managed it with patience, and little by little there arose solid walls of stone with moss and earth between. The weather was growing gradually colder and hindered us not a little in our work. The soil we had to dig in hardened, and the stones that had to be quarried froze fast, and there came snow too. But great was our surprise when we crept out of our den on the morning of the twelfth of September to find the most delightful thaw with four degrees centigrade of heat, thirty-nine point two degrees Fahrenheit. This was almost the highest temperature we had experienced throughout the expedition. On every side streams were tumbling in foaming falls down from mountain and glacier, humming along merrily among the stones down to the sea. Water trickled and tinkled everywhere, as if by a stroke of magic life had returned to frozen nature, and the hill looked green all over. One could fancy one's self far south and forget that a long, long winter was drawing near. The day after everything was changed again. The gentle gods of the south, who yesterday had put forth their last energies, had once more fled. The cold had returned, snow had fallen, and covered every trace. It would not yield again. This little strip of bare ground too was in the power of the genie of the cold and darkness. They held sway now, right down to the sea. I stood looking out over it, how desolate and forsaken this spellbound nature looked. My eye fell upon the ground at my feet. Down there among the stones the poppy still reared its beautiful blossoms above the snow. The last rays of the departing sun would once more kiss its yellow petals, and then it would creep beneath its covering to sleep through the long winter and wake again to new life in the spring. Ah, to be able to do the same. After a week's work the walls of our hut were finished. They were not high, scarcely three feet above the ground, but we had dug down the same distance into the ground, so we reckoned that it would be high enough to stand up in. Now the thing was to get it roofed, but this was not so easy. The only materials we had towards it were, as before mentioned, the log we had found and the walrus hides. The log which was quite twelve inches across, Johansson at last after a day's work, succeeded in cutting in two with our little axe, and with no less labour we rolled it up over the talus and on to the level, and it was laid on the roof as the ridge-piece. Then there were the hides, but they were stiff and frozen fast to the meat and blubber heaps which they covered. With much difficulty we at length loosened them by using wedges of walrus tusks, stone and wood. To transport these great skins over the long distance to our hut was a no less difficult matter. However, by rolling them, carrying them, and dragging them we accomplished this too. But to get the frozen skins stretched over the hut was the worst of all. We got on pretty well with three half-skins, just managing to bend them a little, but the fourth half was frozen quite stiff, and we had to find a hole in the ice and sink it in the sea to thaw it. It was almost a cause for anxiety, I thought, that all this time we saw nothing of any bears. They were what we had to live upon all through the winter, and the six we had would not go far. I thought, however, that it might easily be accounted for, as the fjord ice to which the bear prefers to keep had taken its departure on the day when we had nearly drifted out to sea with the walruses, and I thought that when the ice now formed again bears would appear once more. It was therefore a relief when one morning, September 23rd, I caught sight of a bear in front of me just as I came round the promontory to look at the skin that we had in soak in the sea. It was standing on the shore close by the skin. It had not seen me, and I quickly drew back to let Johansson, who was following with his gun, pass me while I ran back to fetch mine. When I returned Johansson lay on the same spot behind a stone and had not fired. There were two bears, one by the hut and one by the shore, and Johansson could not get up to the one without being seen by the other. When I had gone after my gun the bear had turned its steps towards the hut, but just as it reached it Johansson suddenly saw two bears' paws come quickly over the edge of the wall and hit out at the first bear and had followed immediately after. This fellow was busily gnawing at our roof hides which he had torn down and bent so that we had to put them into the sea too to get them thawed. The first bear had to retreat to the shore once more, where we afterwards discovered it had drawn up our hide and had been scraping the fat off it. Under cover of some hummocks we now ran towards it. It noticed us and set off running, and I was only able to send a bullet through its body from behind. Shouting out to Johansson that he must look after the other bear, I set off running, and after a couple of hours' pursuit up the fjord, I at last chased it up under the wall of a glacier where it prepared to defend itself. I went right up to it, but it growled and hissed and made one or two attacks on me from the elevation on which it stood before I finally put an end to its existence. When I got back Johansson was busy skinning the other bear. It had been alarmed by us when we attacked the first and had gone a long way out over the ice. It had then returned to look for its companion and Johansson had shot it. Our winter store was increasing. The next day, September 24, as we were setting out to work at our hut, we saw a large herd of walruses lying out on the ice. We had both had more than enough of these animals and had very little inclination for them. Johansson was of candid opinion that we had no need for them and could let them lie in peace, but I thought it was rather improvident to have food and fuel lying at one's very door and make no use of them, so we set off with our guns. To steal up to the animals under cover of some elevations on the ice was a matter of small difficulty and we had soon come within forty feet of them and could lie there quietly and watch them. The point was to choose one's victim and make good use of one's shot, so as not to waste cartridges. There were both old and young animals and having had more than enough of big ones, we decided to try for the two smallest that we could see. We thought we had no need of more than two. As we lay waiting for them to turn their heads and give us the chance of a good shot, we had plenty of opportunity to watch them. They are strange animals. They lay incessantly poking one another in the back with their huge tusks, both the big old ones and the little young ones. If one of them turned over a little so as to come near and disturb his neighbor, the latter immediately raised itself, grunting, and dug its tusks into the back of the first. It was by no means a gentle caress, and it is well for them that they have such a thick hide, but as it was the blood ran down the backs of several of them. The other would perhaps start up too and return the little attention in the same manner. But it was when another guest came up from the sea that there was a stirrer in the camp. They all grunted in chorus, and one of the old bulls that lay nearest to the new arrival gave him some well-meant blows. The newcomer, however, drew himself cautiously up, bowed respectfully, and little by little drew himself in among the others, who also then gave him as many blows as time and circumstances would permit, until they finally composed themselves again and lay quiet until another interruption came. We waited in vain for the animals we had picked out to turn their heads enough to let us get a good shot. But as they were comparatively small we thought that a bullet in the middle of the forehead might be enough for them, and at last we fired. They started up, however, and turned over, half-stunned into the water. Then there was a commotion. The whole herd quickly raised their ugly heads, glared at us, and one by one plunged out over the edge of the ice. We had hastily loaded again, and as it was not difficult now to get a good shot we fired, and there lay two animals, one young and one old. Most of the others dived, only one remaining quietly lying, and looking wonderingly now at its two dead companions and now at us as we came up to it. We did not quite know what to do. We thought that the two that were now lying there would give us more than enough to do, but nevertheless it was tempting to take this great monster as well while we were about it. While Johansson was standing with his gun, considering whether he should fire or not, I took the opportunity of photographing both him and the walrus. It ended, however, in our letting it go unharmed. We did not think we could afford to sacrifice more cartridges upon it. Meantime the water beyond was seething with furious animals as they broke up the ice round about and filled the air with their roaring. The big bull himself seemed especially anxious to get at us. He kept returning to the edge of the ice, getting half up onto it to grunt and bellow at us and look long at his dead comrades whom he evidently wished to take with him. But we would not waste more cartridges upon them and he threw himself back only to return again immediately. Suddenly the whole herd departed and we could hear the big bulls grunting becoming more and more distant. But suddenly his huge head appeared again at the edge of the ice close to us, as he challenged us with a roar and then disappeared again as quickly as he had come. This was repeated three or four times after our having in the intervals heard him far out, but at last he disappeared entirely and we continued our work of skinning in peace. We very quickly skinned the smaller of the walruses. It was easy to manipulate compared to those we were accustomed to. The other, however, was a great fellow that could not be easily turned over in the hollow in the snow where he lay. So we contented ourselves with skinning one side from head to tail and then went home again with our blubber and skins. We now thought we should have blubber enough for winter fuel and had also abundance of skins for covering the roof of our hut. The walruses still kept near us for some time. Every now and then we would hear some violent blows on the ice from beneath, two or three in succession, and then a great head would burst up with a crash through the ice. It would remain there for a time panting and puffing so that it would be heard a long way off and then vanish again. On September 25th, while we were pulling our roof hides out of the water at a hole near the shore, we heard the same crashing in the ice a little farther out and a walrus came up and then dived again. Look there! It won't belong before we have him in this hole. The words were scarcely spoken when our hide in the water was pushed aside and a huge head with bristles and two long tusks popped up in front of us. It gazed fixedly and wickedly at us standing there. Then there was a tremendous splash and it was gone. Our hides were now so far softened in the sea that we could stretch them over the roof. They were so long that they reached from one side of the hut right over the ridge-piece down to the other side, and we stretched them by hanging large stones at both ends, attached by strips of hide, thus weighing them down over the edges of the wall, and we then piled stones upon them. By the aid of stones, moss, strips of hide, and snow to cover everything, we made the edges of the walls to some extent close-fitting. To make the hut habitable we still had to construct benches of stone to lie upon inside it and also a door. This consisted of an opening in one corner of the wall which led into a short passage dug out in the ground and subsequently roofed over with blocks of ice on very much the same principle as the passage to an Eskimo's house. We had not dug this passage so long as we wished before the ground was frozen too hard for our implements. It was so low that we had to creep through it in a squatting posture to get into the hut. The inner opening was covered with a bearskin curtain sewed firmly to the walder's hide of the roof. The outer end was covered with a loose bearskin laid over the opening. It began to grow cold now, as low as minus twenty degrees centigrade, four degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and living in our low den where we had not room to move became more and more intolerable. The smoke too from the oil lamp when we did any cooking always affected our eyes. We grew daily more impatient to move into our new house which now appeared to us the acme of comfort. Our ever-recurring remark while we were building was how nice and snug it would be when we got in and we depicted to each other the many pleasant hours we should spend there. We were, of course, anxious to discover all the bright points that we could in our existence. The hut was certainly not large. It was ten feet long and six feet wide, and when you lay across it you kicked the wall on one side and buttered it on the other. You could move in it a little, however, and even eye could almost stand upright under the roof. This was the thought which especially appealed to us. We had to be having a place sheltered from the wind where you could stretch your limbs a little. We had not had that since last March on board the Fromme. It was long, however, before everything was in order, and we would not move in until it was quite finished. The day we had skinned our last walruses I had taken several tendons from their backs, thinking they might be very useful when we made ourselves clothes for the winter, for we were entirely without thread for that purpose. Just until a few days afterwards, September 26th, did I recollect that these tendons had been left on the ice beside the carcasses. I went out there to look for them, but found to my sorrow that gulls and foxes had long since made away with them. It was some comfort, however, to find traces of a bear which must have been at the carcasses during the night, and as I looked about I caught sight of Johansson running after me making signs and pointing out towards the sea. I turned that way, and there was a large bear walking to and fro and looking at us. We had soon fetched our guns, and while Johansson remained near the land to receive the bear if it came that way, I made a wide circuit round it on the ice to drive it landward if it should prove to be frightened. In the meantime it had lain down out there beside some holes I supposed to watch for seals. I stole up to it. It saw me, and it first came nearer, but then thought better of it and moved away again, slowly and majestically, out over the new ice. I had no great desire to follow it in that direction, and though the range was long I thought I must try it. First one shot, it passed over, then one more, that hit. The bear started, made several leaps, and then in anger struck the ice until it broke and the bear fell through. Bear at lay, splashing and splashing, and breaking the thin ice with its weight as it tried to get out again. I was soon beside it, but did not want to sacrifice another cartridge. I had faint hopes, too, that it would manage to get out of the water by itself and thus save us the trouble of dragging such a heavy animal out. I called to Johansson to come with a rope, sludges and knives, and in the meantime I walked up and down waiting and watching. The bear labored hard and made the opening in the ice larger and larger. It was wounded in one of its four legs, so that it could use only the other and the two hind legs. It kept on taking hold and pulling itself up, but no sooner had it got half up than the ice gave way and it sank down again. By degrees its movements became more and more feeble, till at last it only lay still and panted. Then came a few spasms, its legs stiffened, its head sank down into the water and all was still. While I was walking up and down I several times heard walruses round about as they buttered holes in the ice and put their heads through, and I was thinking to myself that I should soon have them here, too. At that moment the bear received a violent blow from beneath, pushing it to one side and up came a huge head with gray tusks. It snorted and looked contemptuously at the bear, even gazed for a while, wonderingly at me as I stood on the ice and finally disappeared again. This had the effect of making me think the old solid ice a little farther in a pleasanter place of sojourn than the new ice. My suspicion that the walrus entertained no fear for the bear was more than ever strengthened. At last Johansson came with a rope. We slipped a running noose round the bear's neck and tried to haul it out, but soon discovered that this was beyond our power. All we did was to break the ice under the animal wherever we tried. It seemed hard to have to give it up. It was a big bear and seemed to be unusually fat, but to continue in this way until we had towed up to the edge of the thick ice would be a lengthy proceeding. By cutting quite a narrow crack in the new ice only wide enough to draw the rope through, up to the edge of a large piece of ice which was quite near, we got pretty well out of the difficulty. It was now an easy matter to draw the bear thither under the ice, and after breaking a sufficiently large hole we drew it out there. At last we had got it skinned and cut up and heavily laden with our booty we turned our steps homeward late in the evening to our den. As we approached the beach where our kayaks were lying upon one of our heaps of walrus, blubber, and meat, Johansson suddenly whispered to me, I say, look there. I looked up and there stood three bears on the heaps tearing at the blubber. They were a she-bear and two young ones. Oh, dear, said I, shall we have to set to it bears again? I was tired and to tell the truth had far more desire for our sleeping bag and a good pot full of meat. In a trice we had got our guns out and were approaching cautiously, but they had caught sight of us and set off over the ice. It was with an undeniable feeling of gratitude that we watched their retreating forms. A little later, while I was standing cutting up the meat and Johansson had gone to fetch water, I heard him whistle. I looked up and he pointed out over the ice. There in the dusk were the three bears coming back. Our blubber heap had been too tempting for them. I crept with my gun behind some stones close to the heap. The bears came straight on, looking neither to right nor left, and as they passed me I took as good an aim at the she-bear as the darkness would allow and fired. She roared, bit her side, and all three set off out over the ice. There the mother fell and the young one stood astonished and troubled beside her, until we approached when they fled, and it was impossible to get within range of them. They kept at a respectful distance and watched us while we dragged the dead bear to land and skinned it. When we went out next morning they were standing sniffing at the skin and meat, but before we could get within range they saw us and were off again. We now saw that they had been there all night and had eaten up their own mother's stomach, which had contained some pieces of blubber. In the afternoon they returned once more, and again we attempted but in vain to get a shot at them. Next morning, Saturday, September 28th, when we crawled out, we caught sight of a large bear lying asleep on our blubber heap. Johansson crept up close to it under cover of some stones. The bear heard something moving, raised its head, and looked round. At the same instant Johansson fired, and the bullet went right through the bear's throat, just below the cranium. It got slowly up, looked contemptuously at Johansson, considered a little, and then walked quietly away with long measured steps as if nothing had happened. It soon had a couple of bullets from each of us in its body and fell out on the thin ice. It was so full of food that as it lay there, blubber and oil and water ran out of its mouth onto the ice, which began gradually to sink under its weight, until it lay in a large pool, and we hastily dragged it into the shore before the ice gave way beneath it. It was one of the largest bears I have ever seen, but also one of the leanest, for there was not a trace of fat upon it. Neither underneath the skin nor among the entrails. It must have been fasting for a long time and been uncommonly hungry, for it had consumed an incredible quantity of our blubber. And how it had pulled it about! First it had thrown one kayak off, then it had scattered the blubber about in all directions, scraping off the best of the fat upon almost every single piece. Then it had gathered the blubber together again in another place, and then happy with the happiness of satiety had lain down to sleep upon it, perhaps so as to have it handy when it woke up again. Previous to attacking the blubber heap it had accomplished another piece of work which we only discovered later on. It had killed both the young bears that had been visiting us. We found them not far off, with broken skulls and frozen stiff. We could see by the footprints how it had run after them out over the new ice, first one and then the other, and had dragged them on land and laid them down without touching them again. What pleasure it can have in doing this I do not understand, but it must have regarded them as competitors in the struggle for food. Or was it perhaps across old gentlemen who did not like young people? It is so nice and quiet here now, said the ogre when he had cleared the country. Our winter store now began quite to inspire confidence. At length on the evening of that day we moved into our new hut, but our first night there was a cold one. Hitherto we had slept in one bag all the time, and even the one we had made by sewing together our two blankets had been fairly adequate. But now we thought it would not be necessary to sleep in one bag any longer as we should make the hut so warm by burning train oil lamps in it that we could very well lie each in our own berth with a blanked over us, and so we had unpicked the bag. Lamps were made by turning up the corners of some sheets of German silver, filling them with crushed blubber, and laying in this by way of a wick some pieces of stuff from the bandages in the medicine bag. They burned capitalily, and gave such a good light too that we thought it looked very snug. But it neither was nor ever would be sufficient to warm our still rather permeable hut, and we lay and shivered with cold all night. We almost thought it was the coldest night we had had. Breakfast next morning tasted excellent, and the quantity of bear-broth we consumed in order to put a little warmth into our bodies is incredible. We had once decided to alter this by making along the back wall of the hut a sleeping shelf broad enough for us to lie beside one another. The blankets were sewed together again, we spread bear-skins under us, and were as comfortable as we could be under the circumstances, and we made no further attempt to part company at night. It was impossible to make the substratum at all even, with the rough angular stones which now that everything was frozen were all we had at our disposal, and therefore we lay tossing and twisting the whole winter to find something like a comfortable place among all the knobs. But it was hard and remained so, and we always had some tender spots on our body and even sores on our hips with lying. But for all that we slept. In one corner of the hut we made a little hearth to boil and roast upon. In the roof above we cut a round hole in the walrus hide, and made a smoke-board up to it of bear-skin. We had not used this hearth long before we saw the necessity of building a chimney to prevent the wind from beating down and so filling the hut with smoke as to make it sometimes intolerable. The only materials we had for building this were ice and snow, but with these we erected a grand chimney on the roof which served its purpose and made a good draft. It was not quite permanent, however, the hole in it constantly widened with use, and it was not altogether guiltless of sometimes dripping down onto the hearth. But there was abundance of this building material, and it was not difficult to renew the chimney when it was in need of repair. This had to be done two or three times during the course of the winter. On more exposed spots we employed walrus flesh, bone, and such-like materials to strengthen it. Our cookery was as simple as possible. It consisted in boiling bear's flesh and soup, bullion, in the morning, and frying steak in the evening. We consumed large quantities at every meal, and strange to say we never grew tired of this food, but always ate it with a ravenous appetite. We sometimes either ate blubber with it or dipped the pieces of meat in a little oil. A long time might often pass when we ate almost nothing but meat and scarcely tasted fat. But when one of us felt inclined for it again, he would perhaps fish up some pieces of burnt blubber out of the lamps or eat what was left of the blubber from which we had melted the lamp oil. We called these cakes and thought them uncommonly nice, and we were always talking of how delicious they would have been if we could have had a little sugar on them. We still had some of the provisions we had brought from the from, but these we decided not to use during the winter. They were placed in a depot to be kept until the spring when we should move on. The depot was well loaded with stones to prevent the foxes from running away with the bags. They were impudent enough already and took all the movable property they could lay hold of. I discovered, for instance, on October 10th, that they had gone off with a quantity of odds and ends I had left in another depot during the erection of the hut. They had taken everything that they could possibly carry with them, such as pieces of bamboo, steel wire, harpoons, and harpoon lines, my collection of stones, mosses, et cetera, which were stored in small sailcloth bags. Perhaps the worst of all was that they had gone off with a large ball of twine, which had been our hope and comfort when thinking of the time when we should want to make clothes, shoes, and sleeping bags of bearskin for the winter, for we had reckoned unmaking thread out of the twine. It was fortunate that they had not gone off with a theodolite and our other instruments, which stood there. But these must have been too heavy for them. I was angry when I made this discovery and what made it more aggravating, it happened on my birthday. And matters did not improve when, while hunting about in the twilight on the beach above the place where the things had been lying, to see if I could at any rate discover tracks to show which way those demons had taken them, I met a fox that stopped at a distance of twenty feet from me, sat down, and uttered some exasperating howls, so piercing and weird that I had to stop my ears. It was evidently on its way to my things again and was now provoked at being disturbed. I got hold of some large stones and flung them at it. It ran off a little way, but then seated itself upon the edge of the glacier and howled on while I went home to the hut in a rage lay down and speculated as to what we should do to be revenged on the obnoxious animals. We could not spare cartridges to shoot them with, but we might make a trap of stones. This we determined to do, but nothing ever came of it. There were always so many other things to occupy us at first while we still had the opportunity before the snow covered the talus and while it was light enough to find suitable stones. Meanwhile the foxes continued to annoy us. One day they had taken our thermometer, which we always kept outside the hut and gone off with it. We searched for it in vain for a long time until at last we found it buried in a heap of snow a little way off. From that time we were very careful to place a stone over it at night, but one morning found that the foxes had turned over the stone and had gone off with the thermometer again. The only thing we found this time was the case, which they had thrown away a little way off. The thermometer itself we were never to see again. The snow had unfortunately drifted in the night so that the tracks had disappeared. Goodness only knows what foxhole it now adorns, but from that day we learned lesson and henceforward fastened our last thermometer securely. Meanwhile time passed. The sun sank lower and lower until on October 15th we saw it for the last time above the ridge to the south. The days grew rapidly darker and then began our third polar night. We shot two more bears in the autumn, one on the eighth and one on the 21st of October, but from that time we saw no more until the following spring. When I awoke on the morning of October 8th I heard the crunching of heavy steps in the snow outside and then began rummaging about among our meat and blubber up on the roof. I could hear it was a bear and crept out with my gun, but when I came out of the passage I could see nothing in the moonlight. The animal had noticed me and had already disappeared. We did not altogether regret this as we had no great desire to set to at the coal task of skinning now in the wind and with 39 degrees, 70.2 degrees Fahrenheit of frost. There was not much variety in our life. It consisted in cooking and eating breakfast in the morning, then perhaps came another nap after which we would go out to get a little exercise. Of this however we took no more than was necessary as our clothes saturated as they were with fat and worn and torn in many places were not exactly adapted for remaining in the open air in winter. Our wind clothes which we should have had outside as a protection against the wind were so worn and torn that we could not use them and we had so little thread to patch them with that I did not think we ought to use any of it until the spring when we had to prepare for our start. I had counted on being able to make ourselves clothes of bear skins but it took time to cleanse them from all blubber and fat and it was even a slower business getting them dried. The only way to do this was to spread them out under the roof of the hut but there was room for only one at a time. When at last one was ready we had first of all to use it on our bed for we were lying on raw greasy skins which were gradually rotting. When our bed had been put in order with dried skins we had to think about making a sleeping bag as after a time the blanket bag that we had got rather cold to sleep in. About Christmas time accordingly we had last managed to make ourselves a bear skin bag. In this way all the skins we could prepare were used up and we continued to wear the clothes we had throughout the winter. These walks too were a doubtful pleasure because there is always a wind there and it blew hard under the steep cliff. We felt it a wonderful relief when it occasionally happened to be almost calm. As a rule the wind howled above us and lashed the snow along so that everything was wrapped in mist. Many days would sometimes pass almost without our putting our heads out of the passage and it was only bear necessity that drove us out to fetch ice for drinking water or a leg or carcass of a bear for food or some blubber for fuel. As a rule we also brought in some seawater ice or if there were an opening or crack to be found a little seawater for our soup. When we came in and had mustered up appetite for another meal we had to prepare supper, eat till we were satisfied and then get into our bag and sleep as long as possible to pass the time. On the whole we had quite a comfortable time in our hut. By means of our train oil lamps we could keep the temperature in the middle of the room at about freezing point. Near the wall however it was considerably colder and there the damp deposited itself in the shape of beautiful horsfrost crystals so that the stones were quite white and in happy moments we could dream that we dwelt in marble halls. This splendor however had its disadvantages for when the outside temperature rose or when we heated up the hut a little rivulets ran down the wall into our sleeping bag. We took turns at being cooked and Tuesday when one ended his cooking week and the other began afforded on that account the one variation in our lives and formed a boundary mark by which we divided out our time. We always reckoned up how many cooking weeks we had before we should break up our camp in the spring. I had hoped to get so much done this winter, work up my observations and notes and write some of the account of our journey but very little was done. It was not only the poor flickering light of the oil lamp which hindered me nor yet the uncomfortable position either lying on one's back or sitting up and fidgeting about on the hard stones while the part of the body thus exposed to pressure ached. But altogether these surroundings did not predispose one to work. The brain worked dully and I never felt inclined to write anything. Perhaps too this was owing to the impossibility of keeping what you wrote upon clean. If you only took hold of a piece of paper your fingers left a dark brown greasy mark and if a corner of your clothes brushed across it a dark streak appeared. Our journals of this period look dreadful. They are black books in the literal sense of the term. Ah, how we longed for the time when we should once more be able to write on clean white paper and with black ink. I often had difficulty in reading the pencil notes I had written the day before and now in writing this book it is all I can do to find out what was once written on these dirty dark brown pages. I expose them to all possible lights. I examine them with a magnifying glass but not with sanding. I often have to give it up. The entries in my journal for this time are exceedingly meager. There are sometimes weeks when there is nothing but the most necessary meteorological observations with remarks. The chief reason for this is that our life was so monotonous that there was nothing to write about. The same thoughts came and went day after day. There was no more variety in them than in our conversation. The very emptiness of the journal really gives the best representation of our life during the nine months we lived there. Wednesday, November 27th, minus 23 degrees centigrade, 9.4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It is windy weather. The snow whirling about your ears directly you put your head out of the passage. Everything is gray. The black stones can be made out in the snow a little way up the beach and above you can just divine the presence of the dark cliff. But wherever else the gaze is turned, out to sea or up the fjord, there is the same leaden darkness. One is shut out from the wide world, shut into oneself. The wind comes in sharp gusts, driving the snow before it. But up under the crest of the mountain it whistles and roars in the crevices and holes of the basaltic walls. The same never-ending song that it has sung through the thousands of years that are passed and will go on singing through thousands of years to come. And the snow whirls along in its age-old dance. It spreads itself in all the crevices and hollows, but it does not succeed in covering up the stones on the beach. Black as ever they project into the night. On the open space in front of the hut two figures are running up and down like shadows in the winter darkness to keep themselves warm. And so they will run up and down on the path they have trampled out day after day till the spring comes. Sunday, December 1st. Wonderfully beautiful weather for the last few days. One can never weary of going up and down outside while the moon transforms the whole of this ice world into a fairyland. The hut is still in shadow under the mountain which hangs above it, dark and lowering. But the moonlight floats over ice and fjord and is cast back glittering from every snowy ridge and hill. A weird beauty without feeling as though of a dead planet built of shining white marble. Just so must the mountain stand there, frozen and icy cold. Just so must the lakes lie congealed beneath their snowy covering. And now, as ever, the moon sails silently and slowly on her endless course through the lifeless space. And everything so still, so awfully still, with the silence that shall one day rain when the earth again becomes desolate and empty, when the fox will no more haunt these moraines, when the bear will no longer wander about on the ice out there, when even the wind will not rage, infinite silence. In the flaming aurora borealis, the spirit of space hovers over the frozen waters. The soul bows down before the majesty of night and death. Monday, December 2nd, morning. Today I can hear it blowing again outside and we shall have an unpleasant walk. It is bitterly cold now in our worn greasy clothes. It is not so bad when there is no wind, but even if there is only a little, it goes right through one. But what does it matter? Will not the spring one day come here too? Yes, and over us arches the same heaven, now, as always, high and calm as ever. And as we walk up and down here, shivering, we gaze into the boundless starry space and all our privations and sorrows shrink into nothingness. Starlight night, thou art sublimely beautiful, but dost thou not lend our spirit to mighty wings greater than we can control? Couldst thou but solve the riddle of existence? We feel ourselves the center of the universe and struggle for life, for immortality, one seeking it here, another hereafter, while thy silent splendor proclaims, at the command of the eternal, you came into existence on a paltry planet as diminutive links in the endless chain of transformations. At another command, you will be wiped out again. Who then, through an eternity of eternities, will remember that there once was an ephemeral being who could bind sound and light and chains and who was per-blind enough to spend years of his brief existence in drifting through frozen seas? Is then the whole thing but the meteor of a moment? Will the whole history of the world evaporate like a dark, gold-edged cloud in the glow of evening, achieving nothing, leaving no trace, passing like a caprice? Evening. That fox is playing us a great many tricks. Whatever he can move, he goes off with. He has once nod off the band with which the door-skin is fastened, and every now and then we hear him at it again and have to go out and knock on the roof of the passage. Today he went off with one of our sails in which our saltwater ice was lying. We were not a little alarmed when we went to fetch ice and found sail and all gone. We had no doubt as to who had been there, but we could not under any circumstances afford to lose our precious sail on which we depended for our voyage to Spitzbergen in the spring, and we tramped about in the dark, up the beach, over the level, and down towards the sea. We looked everywhere, but nothing was to be seen of it. At last we had almost given it up when Johansson, in going on to the ice to get more saltwater ice, found it at the edge of the shore. Our joy was great, but it was wonderful that the fox had been able to drag that great sail full of ice, too, so far. Down there, however, it had come unfolded, and then he could do nothing with it. But what does he want with things like this? Is it to lie upon in his winter den? One would almost think so. I only wish I could come upon that den and find a thermometer again, and the ball of twine, and the harpoon line, and all the other precious things he has taken, the brute. Thursday, December 5th. It seems as if it would never end, but patience a little longer and spring will come, the fairest spring that earth can give us. There is furious weather outside and snow, and it is pleasant to lie here in our warm hut, eating steak, and listening to the wind raging over us. Tuesday, December 10th. It has been a bad wind. Johansson discovered today that his kayak had disappeared. After some search he found it again several hundred feet off, up the beach. It was a good deal knocked about, too. The wind must first have lifted it right over my kayak and then over one big stone after another. It begins to be too much of a good thing when even the kayaks take to flying about in the air. The atmosphere is dark out over the sea, so the wind has probably broken up the ice and driven it out, and there is open water once more. Last night it all at once grew wonderfully calm and the air was surprisingly mild. It was delightful to be out, and it is long since we have had such a long walk on our beat. It does one good to stretch one's legs now and then, otherwise I suppose we should become quite stiff here in our winter lair. Fancy, only 12 degrees, 21 and a half degrees Fahrenheit, a frost in the middle of December. We might almost imagine ourselves at home. Forget that we were in a land of snow to the north of the 81st parallel. Thursday, December 12th. Between six and nine this morning there were a number of shooting stars, most of them in Serpentarius. Some came right from the Great Bear. Afterwards, say, chiefly came from Bol or Aldebaran or the Pleiades. Several of them were very bright and some drew a streak of shining dust after them. Lovely weather. But night and day are now equally dark. We walk up and down, up and down, on the level in the darkness. Heaven only knows how many steps we shall take on that level before the winter ends. Through the gloom we could see faintly only the black cliffs and the rocky ridges and the great stones on the beach, which the wind always sweeps clean. Above us the sky, clear and brilliant with stars, sheds its peace over the earth. Far in the west falls shower after shower of stars, some faint, scarcely visible, others bright like Roman candles, all with a message from distant worlds. Low in the south lies a bank of clouds, now and again outlined by the gleam of the northern lights. But out over the sea the sky is dark, there is open water there. It is quite pleasant to look at, one does not feel so shut in. It is like a connecting link with life, that dark sea, the mighty artery of the world which carries tidings from land to land, from people to people on which civilization is born victorious through the earth. Next summer it will carry us home. Thursday, December 19th, minus 28.5 degrees, 19.3 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It has turned cold again and is bitter weather to be out in, but what does it signify? We are comfortable and warm in here and do not need to go out more than we like. All the out-of-door work we have is to bring in fresh and saltwater ice two or three times a week, meet in blubber now and again and very occasionally a skin to dry under the roof. And Christmas the season of rejoicing is drawing near. At home everyone is busy now, scarcely knowing how to get time for everything, but here there is no bustle. All we want is to make the time pass. Ah, to sleep, sleep. The pot is simmering pleasantly over the hearth. I am sitting waiting for breakfast and gazing into the flickering flames while my thoughts travel far away. What is the strange power in fire and light that all created beings seek them, from the primary lump of protoplasm in the sea, to the roving child of man who stops in his wanderings, makes up a fire in the wood and sits down to dismiss all care and revel in the crackly warmth? Involuntarily do these snake-like fiery tongues arrest the eye. You gaze down into them as if you could read your fate there and memories glide past in motley train. What, there is privation? What, the present? Forget it, forget yourself. You have the power to recall all that is beautiful and then wait for the summer. By the light of the lamp she sits sowing in the winter evening. Beside her stands a little maiden with blue eyes and golden hair playing with a doll. She looks tenderly at the child and strokes her hair but her eyes fill and the big tears fall upon her work. Johansson is lying beside me asleep. He smiles in his sleep. Poor fellow, he must be dreaming he is at home at Christmas time with those he loves. But sleep on, sleep and dream while the winter passes for then comes spring, the spring of life. Sunday, December 22nd. Walked about outside for a long time yesterday evening while Johansson was having a thorough cleaning in the hut in preparation for Christmas. This consisted chiefly in scraping the ashes out of the hearth, gathering up the refuse of bone and meat and throwing it away and then breaking up the ice which has frozen together with all kinds of rubbish and refuse into a thick layer upon the floor making the hut rather low in the roof. The northern lights were wonderful. However, often we see this weird play of light we never tire of gazing at it. It seems to cast a spell over both sight and sense till it is impossible to tear oneself away. It begins to dawn with a pale yellow spectral light behind the mountain in the east like the reflection of a fire far away. It broadens and soon the whole of the eastern sky is one glowing mass of fire. Now it fades again and gathers in a brightly luminous belt of mist stretching towards the southwest with only a few patches of a luminous haze visible here and there. After a while scattered rays suddenly shoot up from the fiery mist almost reaching to the zenith. Then more they play over the belt in a wild chase from east to west. They seem to be always darting nearer from a long, long way off but suddenly a perfect veil of rays showers from the zenith out over the northern sky. They are so fine and bright like the finest of glittering silver threads. Is it the fire giant cert himself striking his mighty silver harp so that the strings tremble and sparkle in the glow of the flames of Muspelsheim? Yes, it is harp music wildly storming in the darkness. It is the riotous war dance of cert's sons and again at times it is like softly playing gently rocking silvery waves on which dreams travel into unknown worlds. The winter solstice has come and the sun is at its lowest but still at midday we can just see a faint glimmer of it over the ridges in the south. Now it is again beginning to mount northward. Day by day it will grow lighter and lighter and the time will pass rapidly. Oh, how well I can now understand our forefather's old custom of holding an uproarious sacrificial banquet in the middle of winter when the power of the winter darkness was broken. We would hold an uproarious feast here if we had anything to feast with but we have nothing. What need is there either? We shall hold our silent festival in the spirit and think of the spring. In my walk I look at Jupiter over there above the crest of the mountain. Jupiter, the planet of the home. It seems to smile at us and I recognize my good attendance spirit. Am I superstitious? This life and this scenery might well make one so and in fact is not everyone superstitious each in his own way. Have not I a firm belief in my star and that we shall meet again? It has scarcely forsaken me for a day. Death I believe can never approach before one's mission is accomplished. Never comes without one feeling its proximity and yet a cold fate may one day cut the thread without warning. Tuesday, December 24th at 2 p.m. today minus 24 degrees centigrade 11.2 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and this is Christmas Eve cold and windy out of doors and cold and drafty indoors. How desolate it is. Never before have we had such a Christmas Eve. At home the bells are now ringing Christmas in. I can hear their sound as it swings through the air from the church tower. How beautiful it is. Now the candles are being lighted on the Christmas trees. The children are let in and dance round in joyous delight. I must have a Christmas party for children when I get home. This is the time of rejoicing and there is feasting in every cottage at home and we are keeping the festival in our little way. Johansson has turned his shirt and put the outside shirt next to him. I have done the same and then I have changed my drawers and put on the others that I had rung out in warm water. And I have washed myself too in a quarter of a cup of warm water with the discarded drawers as sponge and towel. Now I feel quite another being. My clothes do not stick to my body as much as they did. Then for supper we had fiskegraten made of powdered fish and maize meal with train oil to it instead of butter, both fried and boiled, one as dry as the other, and for dessert we had bread fried in train oil. Tomorrow morning we are going to have chocolate and bread. Wednesday, December 25th, we have got lovely Christmas weather, hardly any wind and such bright beautiful moonlight. It gives one quite a solemn feeling. It is the peace of thousands of years. In the afternoon the northern lights were exceptionally beautiful. When I came out at six o'clock there was a bright pale yellow bow in the southern sky. It remained for a long time almost unchanged and then began to grow much brighter at the upper margin of the bow behind the mountain crests in the east. It smoldered for some time and then all at once light darted out westward along the bow. Streamers shot up all along it towards the zenith and in an instant the whole of the southern sky from the ark to the zenith was aflame. It flickered and blazed. It whirled round like a whirlwind moving with the sun. Rays darted backward and forward, now red and redders violet, now yellow, green and dazzling white. Now the rays were red at the bottom and yellow and green farther up and then again this order was inverted. Higher and higher it rose. Now it came on the north side of the zenith too. For a moment there was a splendid corona and then it all became one whirling mass of fire up there. It was like a whirlpool of fire in red, yellow and green and the eye was dazzled with looking at it. It then drew across to the northern sky where it remained a long time but not in such brilliancy. The ark from which it had sprung in the south was still visible but soon disappeared. The movement of the rays was chiefly from west to east but sometimes the reverse. It afterwards flared up brightly several times in the northern sky. I counted as many as six parallel bands at one time but they did not attain to the brightness of the former ones. And this is Christmas day. There are family dinners going on at home. I can see the dignified old father standing smiling and happy in the doorway to welcome children and grandchildren. Out of doors the snow is falling softly and silently in big flakes. The young folk come rushing in fresh and rosy, stamp the snow off their feet in the passage, shake their things and hang them up and then enter the drawing room where the fire is crackling comfortably and cozily in the stove and they can see the snowflakes falling outside and covering the Christmas corn sheaf. A delicious smell of roasting comes from the kitchen and in the dining room the long table is laid for a good old fashioned dinner with good old wine. How nice and comfortable everything is. One might fall ill with longing to be home but wait, wait, when summer comes. Oh the road to the stars is both long and difficult. Tuesday, December 31st and this year too is vanishing. It has been strange but after all it has perhaps not been so bad. They are ringing out the old year now at home. Our church bell is the icy wind howling over glacier and snow field, howling fiercely as it whirls the drifting snow on high in cloud after cloud and sweeps it down upon us from the crest of the mountain up yonder. Far in up the fjord you can see the clouds of snow chasing one another over the ice in front of the gusts of wind and the snow dust glittering in the moonlight and the full moon sails silent and still out of one year into another. She shines alike upon the good and the evil nor does she notice the wants and yearnings of the new year. Solitary, forsaken, hundreds of miles from all that one holds dear but the thoughts flit restlessly to and fro on their silent paths. Once more a leaf is turned in the book of eternity, a new blank page is opened and no one knows what will be written on it. End of file 13. File 14 of farthest north volume two, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Sharon Riscadal. Farthest north by Fritjaf Nansen volume two, chapter eight, the new year, 1896. Wednesday, January 1st, 1896. Minus 41.5 degrees centigrade, 42.2 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. So a new year has come, the year of joy and homecoming. In bright moonlight, 1895 departed and in bright moonlight, 1896 begins but it is bitterly cold, the coldest days we have yet known here. I felt it too yesterday when all my fingertips were frostbitten. I thought I had done with all that last spring. Friday, January 3rd, morning. It is still clear and cold out of doors. I can hear reports from the glacier. It lies up there on the crest of the mountain like a mighty ice giant peering down at us through the clefts. It spreads its giant body all over the land and stretches out its limbs on all sides into the sea. But whenever it turns cold, colder than it has hitherto been, it rides horribly and crevice after crevice appears in the huge body. There is a noise like the discharge of guns and the sky and the earth tremble so that I can feel the ground that I am lying on quake. One is almost afraid that it will someday come rolling over upon one. Johansson is asleep and making the hut resound. I am glad his mother cannot see him now. She would certainly pity her boy, so black and grimy and ragged as he is, with sooty streaks all over his face. But wait, only wait. She shall have him again safe and sound and fresh and rosy. Wednesday, January 8th. Last night the wind blew the sledge to which our thermometer was hanging out over the slope. Stormy weather outside, furious weather, almost taking away your breath if you put your head out. We lie here trying to sleep, sleep the time away, but we cannot always do it. All those long, sleepless nights when you turn from side to side, kick your feet to put a little warmth into them and wish for only one thing in the world, sleep. The thoughts are constantly busy with everything at home, but the long, heavy body lies here, trying in vain to find an indurable position among the rough stones. However, time crawls on and now Little Leaves' birthday has come. She is three years old today and must be a big girl now. Poor little thing, you don't miss your father now and next birthday I shall be with you, I hope. What good friends we shall be. You shall ride a cock horse and I will tell you stories from the north about bears, foxes, walruses and all the strange animals up there in the ice. No, I can't bear to think of it. Saturday, February 1st. Here I am down with the rheumatism. Outside it is growing gradually lighter day by day. The sky above the glaciers in the south grows redder until at last one day the sun will rise above the crest and our last winter night be past. Spring is coming. I have often thought spring sad. Was it because it vanished so quickly? Because it carried promises that summer never fulfilled? But there is no sadness in this spring. Its promises will be kept. It would be too cruel if they were not. It was a strange existence lying thus in a hut underground the whole winter through without a thing to turn one's hand to. How we longed for a book. How delightful our life on board the from appeared when we had the whole library to fall back upon. We would often tell each other how beautiful this sort of life would have been after all if we had only had anything to read. Johansson always spoke with a sigh of haze's novels. He had especially liked those on board and he had not been able to finish the last one he was reading. The little readable matter which was to be found in our navigation table and almanac I had read so many times already that I knew it almost by heart. All about the Norwegian royal family, all about persons apparently drowned and all about self-help for fishermen. Yet it was always a comfort to see these books. The sight of the printed letters gave one a feeling that there was after all a little bit of the civilized man left. All that we really had to talk about had long ago been thoroughly thrashed out and indeed there were not many thoughts of common interest that we had not exchanged. The chief pleasure left to us was to picture to each other how we should make up next winter at home for everything we had missed during our sojourn here. We felt that we should have learned for good and all to set store by all the good things of life, such as food, drink, clothes, shoes, house, home, good neighbors and all the rest of it. Frequently we occupied ourselves too in calculating how far the from could have drifted and whether there was any possibility of her getting home to Norway before us. It seemed a safe assumption that she might drift out into the sea between Spitsbergen and Greenland next summer or autumn and probability seemed to point to her being in Norway in August or September. But there was just the possibility that she might arrive earlier in the summer or on the other hand we might not reach home until later in the autumn. This was the great question to which we could give no certain answer and we reflected with sorrow that she might perhaps get home first. What would our friends then think about us? Scarcely anyone would have the least hope of seeing us again, not even our comrades on board the from. It seemed to us, however, that this could scarcely happen. We could not but reach home in July and it was hardly to be expected that the from could be free from the ice so early in the summer. But where were we? And how great was the distance we had to travel? Over and over again I reckoned out our observations of the autumn and summer and spring but the whole matter was a perpetual puzzle. It seemed clear indeed that we must be lying somewhere far to the west, perhaps off the west coast of Franz Josefland, a little north of Cape Loughley as I had conjectured in the autumn. But if that were so, what could the lands be which we had seen to the northward and what was the land to which we had first come? From the first group of islands which I had called Whiteland, Wittenland to where we now lie, we had passed about seven degrees of longitude that our observations proved conclusively. But if we were now in the longitude of Cape Fligley, these islands must lie on a meridian so far east that it would fall between King Oscar's land and Crown Prince Rudolf's land and yet we had been much farther east and had seen nothing of these lands. How was this to be explained? And furthermore the land we saw had disappeared to the southward and we saw no indication of islands farther east. No, we could not have been near any known land. We must be upon some island lying farther west, in the strait between Franz Joseph Land and Spitzbergen and we could not but think of the hitherto so enigmatic Gilly's land. But this too seemed difficult to explain, for it was hard to understand how, in this comparatively narrow strait, such an extensive mass of land as this could find room without coming so near the northeast land of Spitzbergen that it could easily be seen from it. No other conclusion, however, seemed at all plausible. We had long ago given up the idea that our watches could be even approximately right, for in that case, as already mentioned, we must have come right across Peier's Vilcek land and Dove Glacier without having noticed them. This theory was consequently excluded. There were other things too that greatly puzzled me. If we were on a new land near Spitzbergen, why were the rosy gulls never seen there while we had found them in flocks here to the north? And then there was the great variation of the compass. Unfortunately I had no chart of the variations with me and I could not remember where the zero meridian of variation lay, the boundary line between easterly and westerly variation. I thought, however, that it lay somewhere near the northeast land and here we had still a variation of about twenty degrees. The whole thing was and remained an insoluble riddle. As the daylight began to lengthen later in the spring, I made a discovery which had the effect of still more hopelessly bewildering us. At two points on the horizon, about west-southwest, I fancied that I could see land looming in the air. The appearance recurred again and again and at last I was quite certain that it really was land, but it must be very far away, at least sixty-nine miles, I thought. If it had been difficult to find room between France-Joseph land and northeast land for the islands we had hitherto seen, it was more difficult still to find room for these new ones. Could it be the northeast land itself? This seemed scarcely credible. This land must lie in about eighty-one degrees or so northward while the northeast land does not reach much north of eighty degrees. But at least these islands must be pretty near northeast land and if we once reached them we could not have much farther to go and would perhaps find open water all the way to the Tromsso sloop on which our fancy had now dwelt for over a year and which was to take us home. The thought of all the good things we should find on board that sloop was what comforted us whenever the time hung unendurably heavy on our hands. Our life was not indeed altogether luxurious, how we longed for a change in the uniformity of our diet. If only we could have had a little sugar or perinaceous food in addition to all the excellent meat we had we could have lived like princes. Our thoughts dwelt longingly on great platters full of cakes, not to mention bread and potatoes, how we would make up for lost time when we got back. And we would begin as soon as we got on board that Tromsso sloop. Would they have potatoes on board? Would they have fresh bread? At worst, even hardships bread would not be so bad especially if we could get it fried in sugar and butter. But better even than food would be the clean clothes we could put on and then books only to think of books. The clothes we lived in were horrible and when we wanted to enjoy a really delight flower we would set to work imagining a great bright clean shop where the walls were hung with nothing but new, clean, soft woolen clothes from which we could pick out everything we wanted. Only to think of shirts, vests, drawers, soft and warm woolen trousers, deliciously comfortable jerseys and then clean woolen stockings and warm felt slippers could anything more delightful be imagined and then a Turkish bath. We would sit up side by side in our sleeping bag for hours at a time and talk of all these things. They seemed almost unimaginable. Fancy being able to throw away all the heavy oily rags we had to live in glued as they were to our bodies. Our legs suffered most for there our trousers stuck fast to our knees so that when we moved they abraded and tore the skin inside our thighs till it was all raw and bleeding. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping these sores from becoming altogether too ingrained with fat and dirt and had to be perpetually washing them with moss or a rag from one of the bandages in our medicine bag and a little water which I warmed in a cup over the lamp. I have never before understood what a magnificent invention soap really is. We made all sorts of attempts to wash the worst of the dirt away but they were all equally unsuccessful. Water had no effect upon all this grease. It was better to scour oneself with moss and sand. We could find plenty of sand in the walls of the hut when we hacked the ice off them. The best method however was to get our hands thoroughly lubricated with warm bears blood and train oil and then scrub it off again with moss. They thus became as white and soft as the hands of the most delicate lady and we could scarcely believe that they belonged to our own bodies. When there was none of this toilet preparation to be had we found the next best plan was to scrape our skin with a knife. If it was difficult to get our own bodies clean it was a sheer impossibility as regards our clothes. We tried all possible ways. We washed them both in Eskimo fashion and in our own but neither was of much avail. We boiled our shirts in the pot hour after hour but took them out only to find them just as full of grease as when we put them in. Then we took to ringing the train oil out of them. This was a little better but the only thing that produced any real effect was to boil them and then scrape them with a knife while they were still warm. By holding them in our teeth and our left hand and stretching them out while we scraped them all over with the right hand we managed to get amazing quantities of fat out of them and we could almost have believed that they were quite clean when we put them on again after they were dry. The fat which we scraped off was of course a welcome addition to our fuel. In the meanwhile our hair and beard grew entirely wild. It is true that we had scissors and could have cut them but as our supply of clothes was by no means too lavish we thought it kept us a little warmer to have all this hair which began to flow down over our shoulders but it was cold black like our faces and we thought our teeth and the whites of our eyes shone with an uncanny whiteness now that we could see each other again in the daylight of the spring. On the whole however we were so accustomed to each other's appearance that we really found nothing remarkable about it and not until we fell in with other people and found that they were precisely of that opinion did we begin to recognize that our outer man was perhaps open to criticism. It was a strange life and in many ways it put our patience to a severe test but it was not so unendurable as one might suppose. We at any rate thought that all things considered we were fairly well off. Our spirits were good the whole time. We looked serenely towards the future and rejoiced in the thought of all the delights it had in store for us. We did not even have recourse to quarreling to while away the time. After our return Johansson was once asked how we too had got on during the winter and whether we had managed not to fall out with each other for it is said to be a severe test for two men to live so long together in perfect isolation. Oh no, he answered, we didn't quarrel. The only thing was that I had the bad habit of snoring in my sleep and then Nansen used to kick me in the back. I cannot deny that this is the case. I gave him many a well-meant kick but fortunately he only shook himself a little and slept calmly on. Thus did our time pass. We did our best to sleep away as much as possible of it. We carried this art to a high pitch of perfection and could sometimes put in as much as twenty hours sleep in the twenty-four. If anyone still holds to the old superstition that scurvy is due to lack of exercise he may look upon us as living evidences to the contrary for all the time our health was excellent. As the light now began to return with the spring however we were more inclined to go out. Besides it was not always so cold now and we had to restrict our sleep a little. Then too the time for our departure was approaching and we had plenty to occupy us in the way of preparation and so forth. Tuesday, February twenty-fifth. Lovely weather to be out in today. It is as though spring were beginning. We have seen the first birds, first a flock of half a score of little ox, mergulous alay, then a flock of four. They came from the south along the land evidently through the sound in the southeast and disappeared behind the mountain crest to the northwest of us. Once more we heard their cheerful twittering and it roused a responsive echo in the soul. A little later we heard it again and then it seemed as if they were perched on the mountain above us. It was the first greeting from life. Blessed birds, how welcome you are. It was quite like a spring evening at home. The sun's red glow faded little by little into golden clouds and the moon rose. I went up and down outside and dreamt I was in Norway on a spring evening. Wednesday, February twenty-sixth. Today we ought to have had the sun again but the sky was cloudy. Friday, February twenty-eighth. I have discovered that it is possible to get twelve threads out of a bit of twine and am as happy as a king. We have thread enough now and our wind clothes shall be whole once more. It is possible too to ravel out the canvas in the bags and use it for thread. Saturday, February twenty-ninth. The sun high above the glacier today. We must begin to economize and train oil in earnest now if we are to get away from here or there will be too little blubber for the journey. Wednesday, March fourth. When Johansson went out this morning the mountain above us was covered with little ox which flew twittering from crest to crest and sat all over the glacier. When we went out again later on they were gone. Friday, March sixth. We are faring badly now. We have to sleep in the dark to save oil and can only cook once a day. Sunday, March eighth. Shot to bear. Johansson saw ten flocks of little ox flying up the sound this morning. Tuesday, March tenth. That bear the day before yesterday came in the nick of time and an amusing fellow he was too. We were very badly off, both for blubber and meat, but most for blubber, and we were longing for a bear. We thought it must be about time for them to come again now. I had just spent Sunday morning emending my wind trousers and patching my co-mogger so as to be already if a bear should come. Johansson, whose cooking week it was, had been sewing a little too and was just cleaning up the hut for Sunday and taking out some bone and meat. He had taken it as far as the passage. But no sooner had he raised the skin over the opening out there, then I heard him come tumbling head foremost in again over the bone-heap and say, there's a bear standing just outside the door. He snatched his gun down from where it hung under the roof and again put his head into the passage but drew it quickly back saying, he is standing close by and must be thinking about coming in. He managed to draw aside a corner of the door-skin just enough to give him elbow room to shoot but it was not altogether easy. The passage was narrow enough before and now in addition it was full of all the backbones and scraps of meat. I saw him once lift the gun to his shoulder as he lay crouched together but take it down again. He had forgotten to cock it and the bear had moved a little away so that he only saw its muzzle and paws. But now it began scraping down in the passage with one paw as if it wanted to come in and Johansson thought he must fire even if he could not see. He put out his gun pointing the barrel at the upper edge of the opening. He thought the shot must go right into the bear's breast and so he fired. I heard a dull growl and the crunching of the snow under heavy footsteps which went up towards the talus. Johansson loaded again and put his head out at the opening. He said he saw it going up there and that it didn't seem up too much and forthwith he rushed after it. I meanwhile was lying head foremost in the bag hunting for a sock which I could not find. At last after long search I found it on the floor of course. Then I too was ready and well equipped with gun, cartridges, knife, and file to sharpen the seal knife I followed. I had my wind trousers on too. They had been hanging unused all through the winter's cold for want of thread to mend them with but now when the temperature was only minus two degrees centigrade, 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit they of course had to come out. I followed the tracks. They went westward and northward along the shore. After a little while I had last met Johansson who said that the bear lay farther on. He had at last got up to it and finished it with a shot in the back. While he returned to fetch the sledges I went on to begin skinning. It was not to be done quite so quickly however. As I approached the place where I thought it must be lying I caught sight of the dead bear far ahead trotting pretty briskly along the shore. Now and then it stopped to look round at me. I ran out on to the ice to get outside it if possible and drive it back so that we should not have so far to drag it. When I had kept on at this for some time and was about on a level with it it began clamoring up the glacier and under some ragged rock. I had not reckoned on a dead bear being able to do this and the only thing was to stop it as soon as possible but just as I got within range it disappeared over the crest. Soon I saw it again a good deal higher up and far out of range. It was craning its neck to see if I were following. I went up some way after it but as it went on along the mountain more quickly than I could follow it in the deep snow under which more ever there were crevices into which I kept falling up to my waist I preferred to clamber down onto the fjord ice again. In little while the bear emerged from beneath a perpendicular cliff with a precipitous bit of talus beneath it. Here it began to crawl carefully along at the very top of the talus. I was now afraid of its lying down in a place like this where we could not get at it and even though the range was long I felt I must fire and see if I could not make it fall over. It did not look as if it had too firm a footing up there. It was blowing like anything here under the cliff and I saw that the bear had to lie flat down and hold on with its claws when the worst gusts came and then too it had only three paws to hold on with the right foreleg had been broken. I went up to a big stone at the lower edge of the talus took good aim and fired. I saw the bullet strike the snow just beneath it but whether it was hit or not it started up and tried to jump over a drift but slipped and rolled over. It tried several times to stop itself but went on until at last it found its feet and began to crawl slowly up again. Meanwhile I had loaded again and the range was now shorter. I fired once more. It stood still a moment then slipped farther and farther down the drift at first slowly then quicker and quicker rolling over and over. I thought it was coming straight towards me but comforted myself with the thought that the stone I was standing behind was a good solid one. I squatted down and quickly put a fresh cartridge into my gun. The bear had now arrived at the talus below the drift. It came tearing down together with stones and lumps of snow in a series of leaps each longer than the last. It was a strange sight this great white body flying through the air and turning somersault after somersault as if it had been a piece of wood. At last it took one tremendous leap and landed against an enormous stone. There was a regular crash and there at lay close beside me a few spasms passed through it and all was over. It was an uncommonly large hebear with a beautiful thick fur which one might well wish to have at home but the best thing of all was that it was very fat. It was so windy that the gusts were apt to blow you over if you were not prepared for them but with the air so mild as it was wind did not matter much. It would not have been such bad work to skin it had it not been that it was lying in a hollow and was so big that one man could not stir it. After a time however Johansson came and at last we had got it dismembered and had dragged it down to the ice and piled it on the sledge. We had not gone far however before we found that it would be too heavy for us to draw all at once against this wind and for such a distance. We laid half of it in a heap on the ice and spread the skin over it intending to fetch it in a day or two and even then we had difficulty enough in fighting on against the wind in the dark so that it was late at night before we got home but it was long since we had so much enjoyed our homecoming and being able to lie down in our bag and supple off fresh meat and hot soup. We lived on that bear for six weeks. When Johansson was out this morning at six he thought he saw little ox in millions flying up the sound. When we went out to two in the afternoon there was an unceasing passage of flock after flock out to sea and this continued until late in the afternoon. I saw two guillomots, Uriah Grill two, fly over our heads. They are the first we have seen. Wednesday March 25th there is the same dark water sky behind the promontory in the southwest stretching then westward almost to the extreme west. It has been there all through this mild weather with southwesterly wind from the very beginning of the month. There seems to be always open water there for no sooner is the sky overcast than the reflection of water appears in that quarter. Thursday April 2nd As I awoke at about eight this evening our morning happened to fall in the evening today. We heard an animal rustling about outside and gnawing at something. We did not take much notice of it thinking it was a fox busy as usual with some meat up on the roof and if it did seem to be making rather more noise than we had of late been accustomed to hear from foxes yet it was scarcely noisy enough to come from a bear. We did not take into consideration that the snow was not so cold and crackling now as it had been earlier in the winter. When Johansson went out to read the thermometer he saw that it was a bear that had been there. It had gone round the hut but had evidently not liked all the bear's carcasses and had not ventured past them up to the walrus blubber on the roof. At the opening of the passage and the chimney it had sniffed hard, doubtless enjoying the delicious scent of burnt blubber and live human flesh. Then it had dragged a walrus hide that was lying outside a little way off and scraped the blubber off it. It had come from the ice obliquely up the hill following the scent, had then followed our footsteps from the hut to the place where we get salt water, and had then gone farther out over the ice until it had got scent of the walrus carcasses out there and was going towards them when Johansson caught sight of it. There it set to work to gnaw. As my gun was not fit to use at the moment I took Johansson's and went alone. The bear was so busy gnawing and tearing pieces off the carcass that I could get close up to it from behind without troubling about cover. Wishing to try how near I could get I went on and it was not until I was so near that I could almost touch it with the muzzle of my gun that it heard my steps so busy had it been. It started round, gazed defiantly and astonished at me and I saluted it with a charge right in its face. It threw up its head, sneezed and blew blood out over the snow as it turned round again and galloped away. I was going to load again but the cartridge jammed and it was only by using my knife that I got it out. While I was doing this the bear had be thought himself, stopped, turned towards me and snorted angrily as he made up his mind to set upon me. He then went up onto a piece of ice close by, placed himself in an attitude of defense and stretched out his neck towards me while the blood poured from his mouth and nostrils. The ball had gone right through his head but without touching the brain. At last I had put another cartridge in but had to give him five shots before I finally killed him. At each shot he fell but got up again. I was not accustomed to the sights on Johansson's gun and shot rather too high with it. At last I grew angry, rushed up to him and finished him off. We were beginning to be well supplied with blubber and meat for the journey south and we're now busy fitting ourselves out. And there was a great deal to be done. We had to begin to make ourselves new clothes out of our blankets, our wind clothes had to be patched and mended, our comogger had to be sold and we had to make socks and gloves out of bear skin. Then we had to make a light good sleeping bag of bear skin. All this would take time and from this time we worked industriously at our needle from early morning to late at night. Our hut was suddenly transformed into a busy tailor's and shoemaker's workroom, where we sat side by side in the sleeping bed upon the stone bed and sewed and sewed and thought about the homecoming. We got thread by unraveling the cotton canvas of some provision bags. It need hardly be said that we were always talking about the prospects for our journey and we found great comfort in the persistence of the dark sky in the southwest, which indicated much open water in that direction. I consequently thought we should have good use for our kayaks on the journey to Spitzbergen. I mentioned this open water several times in my journal, for instance on April 12th, open water from the promontory in the southwest, northward as far as we can see. By this I mean of course that there was dark air over the whole horizon in this direction, showing clearly that there was open water there. This could not really surprise us. Indeed we ought to have been prepared for it, since Peyer had found open water in the middle of April at a more northerly point on the west coast of Crown Prince Rudolf land, and this had been continually in my thoughts all through the winter. Another thing which made us believe in the close vicinity of the sea was that we were daily visited by ivory gulls and fulmars, prosolaria glacialis, sometimes squas also. We saw the first ivory gulls on March 12th. Throughout April they became more and more numerous, and soon we had plenty, both of them and of the burgomasters, Loras Glaucas, sitting on our roof and round the hut, and drumming and pecking at the bones and remains of bears they found there. During the winter the continual gnawing of the foxes at the meet-up there had entertained us and reminded us that we were not quite forsaken by living things. When half asleep we could often imagine that we were in our beds at home and heard the rats and mice holding their revels in the attic above us. With the coming of daylight the foxes vanished. They now found plenty of little ox up in the clefts of the mountains and had no longer to depend on our stone-hard frozen bear-meat. But now we had the drumming of the gulls instead, but they did not call up the same illusions, and when we had them on the roof just over our heads were often very tiresome and even disturbed our sleep, so that we had to knock on the roof or go out and frighten them away, which, however, had the desired effect only for a few minutes. On the eighteenth of April while I was at work on some solar time observations, I happened to look up and was surprised to see a bear standing just opposite to me, down on the ice by the shore. It must have been standing there a long time, wondering what I was about. I ran to the hut for a gun, but when I returned it took to its heels, and I was not eager to follow it. Sunday, April nineteenth. I was awakened at seven o'clock this morning by the heavy steps of a bear outside. I awakened Johansson, who struck a light, and I got on my trousers and co-mogger and crept out with loaded gun. During the night a great deal of snow had, as usual, drifted over the skin that covered the opening and was difficult to break through. At last, by kicking with all my might from below, I managed to knock the snow off and put my head out into the daylight, which was quite dazzling after the darkness down in the hut. I saw nothing, but knew that the bear must be standing just behind the hut. Then I heard a snorting and blowing, and off went the brute in a clumsy bear's gallop up the slope. I did not know whether to shoot or not, and to tell the truth I had little inclination for bear-skinning in this bitter weather, but half at random I sent a shot after it, which of course missed, and I was not sorry. I did not shoot again. The one shot was enough to frighten it and keep it from coming again for the present. We did not want it if only it would leave our things in peace. At the cleft to the north it looked back and then went on. As usual it had come against the wind and must have scented us far west upon the ice. It had made several tacks to leeward to us, had been at the entrance of the hut, where it had left a visiting-card, and had then gone straight to a mound at the back of us, where there is some walrus-blubber surrounded on all sides by bear's carcasses. These had no terrors for it. The bear-skin which covered it had dragged a long way, but fortunately it had not succeeded in getting anything eaten before I came. Sunday May 3rd. When Johansson came in this morning he said he had seen a bear out on the ice. It was coming in. He went out a little later to look for it, but did not see it. It had probably gone into the bay to the north. We expected a visit from it, however, as the wind was that way, and as we sat later in the day, sowing as hard as we could sow, we heard heavy footsteps on the snow outside. They stopped, went backward, and forward a little, and then something was drawn along and all was quiet. Johansson crept cautiously out with his gun. When he put his head out of the hole and his eyes had recovered from the first dazzling effects of the daylight, he saw the bear standing gnawing at a bear-skin. A bullet through the head killed it on the spot. It was a lean little animal, but worth taking, inasmuch as it saved us the trouble of thawing up carcasses in order to cut provisions for our journey off them. Frozen stiff as they now are, we cannot cut them up outside in the cold, but have to bring them into the hut and soften them in the warmth before we can cut anything off them, and this takes time. Two bears were here on a visit last night, but they turned back again at the sledge, which is stuck up on end in the moraine to the west of us, to serve as a stand for our thermometer. As we were breakfasting on May 9th, we again heard a bear's footsteps outside, and being afraid that it was going to eat up our blubber, we had no other resource than to shoot it. We now had far more meat than we required, and did not care to use more cartridges on these animals for the present. But what grieved us most was the thought of all the beautiful bearskins which we should leave behind us. The time was now drawing near when we should bake up our camp, and we worked eagerly at our preparations. Our clothes were now ready. The entry for Tuesday, May 12th, runs thus. Took leave today of my old trousers. I was quite sad at the thought of the good service they had done, but they are now so heavy with oil and dirt that they must be several times their original weight, and if they were squeezed, oil would ooze out of them. It was undeniably pleasant to put on the new, light soft trousers of blanket, which were to some extent free from grease. As however this material was loose in texture, I was afraid it might wear out before we reached Spitzbergen, and we had therefore strengthened it, both inside and outside, with pieces of an old pair of drawers and of a shirt to protect it from wear. While I was taking some observations outside the hut on Saturday, May 16th, I saw a bear with quite a small young one out on the ice. I had just taken a turn out there, and they were examining my tracks. The mother went first, going up on to all the hummocks I had been upon, turning round and sniffing and looking at the tracks, and then descending again and going on. The tiny young one trotted along behind, exactly repeating the movements of its mother. At last they grew tired of this, and turned their steps towards the shore, disappearing behind the promontory to the north of us. Shortly after, Johansson came out, and I told him about it, and he said, I expect we shall soon see them in the cleft up there, as the wind is that way. I had scarcely said it when, looking across, we saw them both standing, stretching their necks, sniffing, and looking at us and the hut. We did not want to shoot them, as we had abundance of food, but we thought it would be amusing to go nearer and watch them, and then, if possible, frighten them sufficiently to keep them from visiting us in the night, so that we could sleep in peace. When we approached, the mother snorted angrily, turned several times as if to go, pushing the young one on first, but turned back again to observe us more closely. At last they jogged slowly off, continually hesitating and looking back at us, when they got down to the shore, they again went quite slowly among the hummocks and I ran after them. The mother went first, the young one trotting after, exactly in her footsteps. I was soon close to them, the mother saw me, started, and tried to get the young one to go with her, but I now discovered that it could run no faster than I could follow it. As soon as the mother saw this, she turned round, snorted, and came storming right at me. I halted and prepared to shoot in case she should come too near, and in the meantime the little one tramped on as fast as it could. The mother halted at the distance of a few paces from me, snorted and hissed again, looked round at the young one, and when the latter had got a good way on, trotted after it. I ran on again, and overtook the young one, and again the mother went through the same maneuvers. She seemed to have the greatest possible desire to strike me to the next. But then the young one had again got ahead a little, and she did not wait to do it, but trotted after. This was repeated several times, and then they began to clamour up the glacier, the mother in front, the young one after. But the latter did not get on very fast. It trudged along as well as it could in its mother's footprints in the deep snow. It reminded me exactly of a child in trousers as it clamoured up and kept looking round, half frightened, half curious. It was touching to see how incessantly the mother turned round to hasten it on, now and then jogging it with her head, hissing and snorting all the while at me standing quietly below and looking on. When they reached the crest the mother stopped and hissed worse than ever, and when she had let the young one pass her they both disappeared over the glacier, and I went back to continue my work. For the last few weeks a feverish activity had rained in our hut. We had become more and more impatient to make a start, but there was still a great deal to be done. We realised in bitter earnest that we had no longer the from stores to fall back upon. On board the from there might be one or two things lacking, but here we lacked practically everything. What would we not have given even for a single box of dog biscuits for ourselves out of the from's abundance? Where were we to find all that we needed? Quote. For a sludge expedition one must lay in light and nourishing provisions which at the same time afford as much variety as possible. One must have light and warm clothing, strong and practical sludges, end quote, etc. etc. We knew by heart all these maxims of the Arctic text book. The journey that lay before us indeed was not a very great one. The thing was simply to reach Spitzbergen and get on board the sloop, but it was long enough after all to make it necessary for us to take certain measures of precaution. When we dug up the stores which we had buried at the beginning of the winter and opened the bags, we found that there were some miserable remains of a commissariat which had once indeed been good, but was now for the most part moldy and spoiled by the damp of the previous autumn. Our flower, our precious flower, had gotten mildewed and had to be thrown away. The chocolate had been dissolved by the damp and no longer existed, and the pemekin, while it had a strange appearance, and when we tasted it, ugg, it too, had to be thrown away. There remained a certain quantity of fish flour, some molyronnet flour, and some damp, half-molded bread, which we carefully boiled in train oil, partly to dry it as all damp was expelled by the boiling oil, partly to render it more nutritious by impregnating it with fat. We thought it tasted delightful and preserved it carefully for festal occasions and times when all other food failed us. Had we been able to dry bears flesh, we should have managed very well, but the weather was too raw and cold, and the strips of flesh we hung up became only half-dry. There was nothing for it, but to lay in a store of as much cut-up raw flesh and blubber as we could carry with us. Then we filled the three tin boxes that had held our petroleum with train oil, which we used as fuel. For cooking on the journey we would use the pot belonging to our cooking apparatus, and our lamp we used as a brazier in which to burn blubber and train oil together. These provisions and this fuel did not constitute a particularly light equipment, but it had this advantage that we should probably be able to replace what we consumed of it by the way. It was to be hoped that we should find plenty of game. Our short sledges were a greater trouble to us, for of course we could not get them lengthened now. If we failed to find open water all the way over to Spitzbergen, and were compelled to drag them over the uneven drift-ice, we could scarcely imagine how we should get on with the kayaks lying on these short sledges without getting them knocked to pieces on hummocks and pressure ridges. For the kayaks were supported only at the middle while both ends projected far beyond the sledge, and at the slightest inequality these ends hacked against the ice and scraped holes in the sail-cloth. We had to protect them well by lashing bear-skins under them, and then we had to make the best grips we could contrive out of the scanty wood we had to fix on the sledges. This was no easy matter for the great point was to make the grips high in order to raise the kayaks as much as possible and keep them clear of the ice, and then they had to be well lashed in order to keep their places. But we had no cord to lash them with, and had to make it for ourselves of raw bear-skin or walrus-hide, which is not the best possible material for lashings. This difficulty too we overcame and got our kayaks to lie steadily and well. We of course laid the heaviest part of their cargo as much as possible in the middle so that the ends should not be broken down by the weight. Our own personal equipment was quite as difficult to get in order. I have mentioned that we made ourselves new clothes and this took a long time with two such in-expert tailors, but practice made us gradually more skillful, and I think we had good reason to be proud of the results we finally achieved. When we at last put them on, the clothes had quite an imposing appearance, so we thought at any rate. We saved them up and kept them hanging as long as possible in order that they might still be new when we started. Johansson, I believe, did not wear his new coat before we fell in with other people. He declared he must keep it fresh till we arrived in Norway. He could not go about like a pirate when he got among his countrymen again. The poor remains of underclothes that we possessed had, of course, to be thoroughly washed before we started, so that it should be possible to move in them without their rasping too many holes in our skin. The washing we accomplished as above described. Our footgear was in anything but a satisfactory condition. Socks indeed we could make of bare skin, but the worst of it was that the soles of our comogger were almost worn out. We managed, however, to make soles of a sort out of walrus hide by scraping about half its thickness away and then drying it over the lamp. With these soles we mended our comogger after the fashion of the fins. We had plenty of sena thread, sedge thread, and we managed to get our comoggers pretty well watertight again. Thus in spite of everything we were tolerably well off our clothes, though it cannot be said that those we had were remarkable for their cleanliness. To protect us against wind and rain we still had our wind clothes which we patched and stitched together as well as we could. But it took a terrible time for the whole garments now consisted of scarcely anything else but patches and seams, and when you had sewed up a hole at one place they split at another the next time you put them on. The sleeves were particularly bad and at last I tore both sleeves off my jacket so that I should not have the annoyance of seeing them perpetually stripped away. It was very desirable too that we should have a tolerably light sleeping bag, the one we had brought with us no longer existed as we had made clothes out of the blankets so the only thing was to try and make as light a bag as possible out of bare skin. By picking out the thinnest skins we possessed we managed to make one not so much heavier than the reindeer skin bag which we had taken with us on leaving the from. A greater difficulty was to procure a practicable tent. The one we had was out of the question. It had been worn and torn to pieces on our five-month journey of the year before and what was left of it the foxes had made an end of as we had it lying spread over our meat and blubber heap in the autumn to protect it against the gulls. The foxes had nod and torn it in all directions and had carried off great strips of it which we found scattered around. We speculated a great deal as to how we could make ourselves a new tent. The only thing we could think of was to put our sledges with the kayaks upon them parallel to each other at the distance of about a man's height. Then pile snow around them at the sides until they were closed in, lay our snowshoes and bamboo staffs across and then spread our two sails lays together over the hole so that they should reach the ground on both sides. In this way we managed to make ourselves a quite effective shelter, the kayaks forming the roof ridges and the sails the sidewalls of the tent. It was not quite impervious to drifting snow and we had usually a good deal of trouble in stopping up cracks and openings with our wind clothes and things of that sort. But the most important part of our equipment was, after all, our firearms and these fortunately we had kept intolerably good order. We cleaned the rifles thoroughly and rubbed them with train oil. We had also a little Vaseline and gun oil left for the locks. On taking stock of our ammunition we found to our joy that we still had about 100 rifle cartridges and 110 small shot cartridges. We had thus enough if necessary for several more winters. End of file 14.