 CHAPTER 6 SATURDAY OCTOBER 14TH Today we have got on the rudder. The engine is pretty well in order, and we are clear to start north when the ice opens tomorrow morning. It is still slackening and packing quite regularly twice a day, so that we can calculate on it beforehand. Today we had the same open channel to the north, and beyond it open sea as far as our view extended. What can this mean? This evening the pressure has been pretty violent. The flows were packed up against the from on the port side, and were once or twice on the point of toppling over the rail. The ice however broke below, they tumbled back again, and had to go under us after all. It is not thick ice and cannot do much damage, but the force is something enormous. On the masses come, incessantly without a pause. They look irresistible, but slowly and surely they are crushed against the from's sides. Now at thirty p.m. the pressure has at last stopped. After evening sparkling stars and flaming northern lights. I had finished writing my diary gone to bed and was lying reading in the origin of the species about the struggle for existence when I heard the dogs out on the ice making more noise than usual. I called into the saloon that someone ought to go up and see if it was bears they were barking at. Johansson went and came back immediately, saying that he believed he had seen some large animal out in the dark. Go and shoot it then! That he was quite ready to do, and went up again at once, accompanied by some of the others. A shot went off on deck above my head. Then another. Shot followed shot, nine in all. Johansson and Henrickson rushed down for more cartridges and declared that the creature was shot. It was roaring so horribly, but so far they had only indistinctly seen a large grayish white mass out there in the dark moving about among the dogs. Now they were going on to the ice after it. Four of them set off and not far away they really did find a dead bear with marks of two shots. It was a young one. The old one must be at hand and the dogs were still barking loudly. Now they all felt sure that they had seen two together and that the other also must be badly wounded. Johansson and Henrickson heard it groaning in the distance when they were out on the ice again afterwards to fetch a knife they had left lying where the dead one had lain. The creature had been dragged on board and skinned at once before it had time to stiffen in the cold. TODAY OCTOBER 15TH To our surprise the ice did not slacken away much during last night after the violent pressure, and what was worse there was no indication of slackening in the morning now that we were quite ready to go. Slight signs of it showed themselves a little later upon which I gave orders to get up steam, and while this was being done I took a stroll on the ice to look for traces of yesterday evening. I found tracks not only of the bear that had been killed and of a larger one that might be the mother, but of a third which must have been badly wounded as it had sometimes dragged itself on its hind quarters and had left a broad track of blood. After following the traces for a good way and discovering that I had no weapon to dispatch the animal with but my own fists, I thought it would be as well to return to the ship to get a gun and companions who would help to drag the bear back. I had also some small hope that in the meantime the ice might have slackened so that in place of going after game we might go north with the from, but no such luck. So I put on my snowshoes and set off after our bear, some of the dogs with me and one or two men following. At some distance we came to the place where it had spent the night, poor beast a ghastly night. Here I also saw tracks of the mother, one shudders to think of her watching over her poor young one which must have had its back shot through. Soon we came up to the cripple dragging itself away from us over the ice as best it could. Seeing no other way of escape it threw itself into a small water opening and dived time after time. While we were putting a noose on a rope the dogs rushed around the hole as if they had gone mad and it was difficult to keep them from jumping into the water after the bear. At last we were ready and the next time the creature came up it got a noose round one paw and a ball in the head. Whilst the others drew it to the ship I followed the mother's tracks for some way but could not find her. I had soon to turn back to see if there was no prospect of moving the from, but I found that the ice had packed together again a little at the very time when we could generally calculate on its slackening. In the afternoon Hansen and I went off once more after the bear. We saw as I expected that she had come back and had followed her daughter's funeral procession for some way, but then she had gone off east and as it grew dark we lost her tracks and some newly packed ice. We have only one matter for regret in connection with this bear episode and that is the disappearance of two dogs, Narifus and Fox. Probably they went off in terror on the first appearance of the three bears. They may have been hurt but I have seen nothing to suggest this. The ice is quiet this evening also, only a little pressure about seven o'clock. Monday October 16th. Ice quiet and close. Mountains on the twelfth placed us in seventy-eight degrees five minutes north latitude. Steadily southwards this is almost depressing. The two runaways returned this morning. Tuesday October 17th. Continuous movement in the ice. It slackened a little again during the night. Some way off to Starboard there was a large opening. Shortly after midnight there was strong pressure and between eleven and twelve a.m. came a tremendous squeeze. Since then it has slackened again a little. Wednesday October 18th. When the meteorologist Johansson was on deck this morning reading the thermometers he noticed that the dogs which are now tied up on board were barking loudly down at something on the ice. He bent over the rail astern near the rudder and saw the back of a bear below him close in at the ship's side. After he went for a gun and the animal fell with a couple of shots. We saw afterwards by its tracks that it had inspected all the heaps of sweepings round the ship. A little later in the morning I went for a stroll on the ice. Hansson and Johansson were busy with some magnetic observations to the south of the ship. It was beautiful sunshiney weather. I was standing beside an open pool a little way ahead examining the formation and growth of the new ice when I heard a gun go off on board. I turned and just caught a glimpse of a bear making off towards the hammocks. It was Henriksen who had seen it from the deck coming marching towards the ship. When it was a few paces off it saw Hansson and Johansson and made straight for them. By this time Henriksen had got his gun but it missed fire several times. He has an unfortunate liking for smearing the lock so well with Vaseline that the spring works as if it lay in soft soap. At last it went off and the ball went through the bear's back and breast in a slanting direction. The animal stood up on its hind legs, fought the air with its fore paws, then flung itself forward and sprang off to fall after about thirty steps. The ball had grazed the heart. It was not till the shot went off that Hansson saw the bear and then he rushed up and put two revolver balls into its head. It was a large bear, the largest we had got yet. About midday I was in the crow's nest. In spite of the clear weather I could not discover land on any side. The opening far to the north has quite disappeared but during the night a large new one has formed quite close to us. It stretches both north and south and has now a covering of ice. The pressure is chiefly confined to the edges of this opening and can be traced in walls of packed ice as far as the horizon in both directions. To the east the ice is quite unbroken and flat. We have lain just in the worst pressure. Thursday October 19th. The ice again slackened a little last night. In the morning I attempted a drive with six of the dogs. When I had managed to harness them to the Samoyed Sledge, had seated myself on it and called Purr Purr, they went off in quite good style over the ice. But it was not long before we came to some high-pack ice and had to turn. This was hardly done before they were off back to the ship at lightning speed and they were not to be got away from it again. Second and rounded they went, from refuse heap to refuse heap. If I started at the gangway on the starboard side and tried by threshing them to drive them out over the ice, round the stern they flew to the gangway on the port side. I tugged, swore, and tried everything I could think of but all to no purpose. I got out and tried to hold the sledge back but was pulled off my feet and dragged merrily over the ice in my smooth seal skin breeches on back stomach side just as it happened. When I managed to stop them at some pieces of pack ice or a dust heap, round they went again to the starboard gangway with me dangling behind swearing madly that I would break every bone in their bodies when I got at them. This game went on till they probably tired of it and thought they might as well go my way for a change. So now they went off beautifully across the flat flow until I stopped for a moment's breathing space. But at the first movement I made in the sledge they were off again tearing wildly back the way we had come. I held on convulsively, pulled, raged, and used the whip but the more I lashed the faster they went on their own way. At last I got them stopped by sticking my legs down into the snow between the sledge shafts and driving a strong seal hook into it as well. But while I was off my guard for a moment they gave a tug. I lay with my hinder part where my legs had been and we went on at lightning speed that substantial part of my body leaving a deep track in the snow. This sort of thing went on time after time. I lost the board I should have sat on, then the whip, then my gloves, then my cap. These losses not improving my temper. Once or twice I ran round in front of the dogs and tried to force them to turn by lashing at them with a whip. They jumped to both sides and only tore on the faster. The reins got twisted round my ankles and I was thrown flat on the sledge and they went on more wildly than ever. This was my first experience in dog driving on my own account and I will not pretend that I was proud of it. I inwardly congratulated myself that my feats had been unobserved. In the afternoon I examined the melted water of the newly formed brownish red ice, of which there is a good deal in the openings round us here. The microscope proved this color to be produced by swarms of small organisms, chiefly plants, quantities of diatoms and some algae, a few of them very peculiar in form. Saturday, October 21st. I have stayed in today because of an affection of the muscles or rheumatism which I have had for some days on the right side of my body and for which the doctor is massaging me, thereby greatly adding to my sufferings. Have I really grown so old and palsied or is the whole thing imagination? It is all I can do to limp about, but I just wonder if I could not get up and run with the best of them if there happened to be any great occasion for it. I almost believe I could. A nice arctic hero of thirty-two, lying here in my birth, have had a good time reading home letters, dreaming myself at home, dreaming of the homecoming. In how many years? Successful or unsuccessful? What does that matter? I had a sounding taken. It showed over seventy-three fathoms, one hundred thirty-five meters, so we are in deeper water again. The sounding line indicated that we are drifting south-west. I do not understand this steady drift southwards. There has not been much wind either lately. There is certainly a little from the north today, but not strong. What can be the reason of it? With all my information, all my reasoning, all my putting of two and two together, I cannot account for any south-going current here. There ought to be a north-going one. If the current runs south here, how is that great open sea we steamed north across to be explained? And the bay we ended in farthest north? These could only be produced by the north-going current which I presupposed. The only thing which puts me out a bit is that west-going current which we had against us during our whole voyage along the Siberian coast. We are never going to be carried away south by the new Siberian islands, then west along the coast of Siberia, and then north by Cape Chaluskin the very way we came. That would be rather too much of a good thing to say nothing of its being dead against every calculation. Well, who cares? Somewhere we must go. We can't stay here forever. It will all come right in the end as the saying goes, but I wish we could get on a little faster wherever we are going. On our Greenland expedition, too, we were carried south to begin with, and that ended well. Sunday, October 22. Henriksen took soundings this morning and found seventy fathoms, one hundred twenty-nine meters of water. If we are drifting at all, said he, it is to the east, but there seems to be almost no movement, no wind to-day, I am keeping in my den. Monday, October 23, still in the den, to-day five fathoms shallower than yesterday. The line points south-west, which means that we are drifting north-eastward. Henriksen has reckoned out the observation for the nineteenth, and finds that we must have got ten minutes farther north, and must be in seventy-eight degrees, fifteen minutes north latitude. So at last, now that the wind has gone down, the north-going current is making itself felt. Some channels have opened near us, one along the side of the ship, and one ahead near the old channel. Tuesday, October 24. Between four and five a.m. there was strong pressure, and the Fram was lifted up a little. It looks as if the pressure were going to begin again. We have spring-tide with full moon. The ice opened so much this morning that the Fram was afloat in her cutting. Later on it closed again, and about eleven there was some strong pressure. Then came a quiet time, but in the afternoon the pressure began once more, and was violent from four to four-thirty. The Fram was shaken and lifted up, didn't mind a bit. Peter gave it, as his opinion, that the pressure was coming from the north-east, for he had heard the noise approaching from that direction. Henriksen let down the silk net for me about eleven fathoms. It was all he could do to get it up again in time, but it brought up a good catch. I'm still keeping in. Wednesday, October 25. We had a horrible pressure last night. I woke and felt the Fram being lifted, shaken and tossed about, and heard the loud cracking of the ice breaking against her sides. After listening for a little while I fell asleep again, with a snug feeling that it was good to be on board the Fram. It would be confoundedly uncomfortable to have to be ready to turn out every time there was a little pressure, or to have to go off with our bundles on our backs like the Tegithoff people. It is quickly getting darker, the sun stands lower and lower every time we see it, soon it will disappear altogether, if it has not done so already. The long dark winter is upon us, and glad shall we be to see the spring. But nothing matters much if we could only begin to move north. There is now southwesterly wind, and the windmill, which has been ready for several days, has been tried at last and works splendidly. We have beautiful electric light today, though the wind has not been specially strong, five to eight meters, sixteen to twenty-six feet per second. Electric lamps are a grand institution. But a strong influence light has on one's spirits. There was a noticeable brightening up at the dinner table today. The light acted on our spirits like a draft of good wine, and how festive the saloon looks. We felt it quite a great occasion, drank Oscar Dixon's health, and voted him the best of good fellows. Wonderful moonshine this evening, light as day, and along with it a roar of royalis, yellow and strange in the white moonlight. A large ring round the moon, all this over the great stretch of white-shining ice, here and there in our neighborhood piled up high by the pressure. And in the midst of this silent, silvery ice-world the windmill sweeps round its dark wings against the deep blue sky and the aurora. A strange contrast, civilization making a sudden incursion into this frozen, ghostly world. Tomorrow is the Fromm's birthday, how many memories it recalls of the launch day a year ago. Thursday October 26th, one hundred sixty-four fathoms, three hundred meters of water when the soundings were taken this morning. We are moving quickly north. Do north, says Peter. It does look as if things were going better. Great celebration of the day, beginning with target shooting. Then we had a splendid dinner of four courses which put our digestive apparatus to a severe test. The Fromm's health was drunk amidst great and stormy applause. The proposer's words were echoed by all hearts when he said that she was such an excellent ship for our purpose that we could not imagine a better, great applause, and we therefore wished her and ourselves, with her, long life, here, here. After supper came strawberry and lemon punch, and prizes were presented with much ceremony and a good deal of fun, all being taken off, in turn, in suitable mottos for the most part composed by the ship's doctor. There was a prize for each man. The first prize-taker was awarded the wooden cross of the Order of the Fromm to wear suspended from his neck by a ribbon of white tape. The last received a mirror, in which to see his fallen greatness. Smoking in the saloon was allowed this evening, so now pipes, toddy, and an animated game of wist ended a bright and successful holiday. Sitting here now alone, my thoughts involuntarily turned to the year that has gone since we stood up there on the platform, and she threw the champagne against the bow, saying, Fromm is your name, and the strong, heavy hull began to glide so gently. I held her hand tight. The tears came into eyes and throat, and one could not get out a word. The sturdy hull dived into the glittering water, a sunny haze lay over the whole picture. Never shall I forget the moment we stood there together, looking out over the scene, and to think of all that has happened these four last months, separated by sea and land and ice, coming years too lying between us. It is all just the continuation of what happened that day. But how long is it to last? I have such difficulty in feeling that I am not to see home again soon. When I begin to reflect, I know that it may be long, but I will not believe it. Day moreover we took solemn farewell of the sun. Half of its disc showed at noon for the last time above the edge of the ice in the south, a flattened body with a dull red glow, but no heat. Now we are entering the night of winter. What is it bringing us? Where shall we be when the sun returns? No one can tell. To console us for the loss of the sun, we have the most wonderful moonlight. The moon goes round the sky night and day. There is strange to say, little pressure just now, only an occasional slight squeeze. But the ice often opens considerably. There are large pieces of water in several directions. Today there were some good-sized ones to the south. Friday, October 27. The soundings this morning showed 52 pheasoms, 95 meters of water. According to observations taken yesterday afternoon, we are about three minutes farther north and a little farther west than on the nineteenth. It is disgusting the way we are muddling about here. We must have got into a hole where the ice grinds round and round and can't get farther. And the time is passing, all to no purpose, and goodness only knows how long this sort of thing may go on. If only a good south wind would come and drive us north out of this hobble. The boys have taken up the rudder again today. While they were working at this in the afternoon, it suddenly grew as bright as day. A strange fireball crossed the sky in the west, giving a bluish-white light, they said. Johansson ran down to the saloon to tell Hansson and me. He said they could still see the bright trails it had left in its train. When we got on deck, we saw a bent bow of light in the triangle near Deheb. The meteor had disappeared in the neighborhood of Epsilon Cygna, Constellation Swan, but its light remained for a long time, floating in the air like glowing dust. No one had seen the actual fireball as they had all had their backs turned to it, and they could not say if it had burst. This is the second great meteor of exceptional splendor that has appeared to us in these regions. The ice has a curious inclination to slacken without pressure having occurred, and every now and then we find the ship floating in open water. This is the case today. Saturday, October 28th, nothing of any importance, moonshine night and day, a glow in the south from the sun. Saturday, October 29th. Peter shot a white fox this morning close into the ship. For some time lately we have been seeing fox tracks in the mornings, and one Sunday Moxted saw the fox itself. It has no doubt been coming regularly to feed on the awful of the bears. Shortly after the first one was shot another was seen. It came and smelt its dead comrade, but soon set off again and disappeared. It is remarkable that there should be so many foxes on this drift-ice so far from land, but after all it is not much more surprising than my coming upon fox tracks out on the ice between Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen. Monday, October 30th. Today the temperature has gone down 18 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, minus 27 degrees centigrade. I took up the dredge I had put out yesterday. It brought up two pails of mud from the bottom, and I had been busy all day washing this out in the saloon in a large bath to get the many animals contained in it. They were chiefly starfish, waving starfish, medusa, astrophytin, sea slugs, coral insects, alcionaria, worms, sponges, shellfish, and crustaceans, and were, of course, all carefully preserved in spirits. Tuesday, October 31st. Forty-nine fathoms, ninety meters of water today, and the current driving us hard to the southwest. We have good wind for the mill now, and the electric lamps burn all day. The arc lamp under the skylight makes us quite forget the want of sun. Oh, light is a glorious thing, and life is fair in spite of all privations. This is SphereDrop's birthday, and we had revolver practice in the morning. Of course, a magnificent dinner of five courses, chicken soup, boiled mackerel, reindeer ribs with baked cauliflower and potatoes, macaroni pudding, and stewed pears with milk, ringness ale to wash it down. Thursday, November 2nd. The temperature keeps at about twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit below zero, minus thirty degrees centigrade now. But it does not feel very cold. The air is so still. We can see the aurora borealis in the daytime, too. I saw a very remarkable display of it, about three this afternoon. On the southwestern horizon lay the glow of the sun. In front of it, light clouds were swept together, like a cloud of dust rising above a distant troop of riders. Then dark streamers of gauze seemed to stretch from the dust cloud up over the sky, as if it came from the sun, or perhaps rather, as if the sun were sucking it into itself from the whole sky. It was only in the southwest that these streamers were dark, a little higher up, farther from the sun-glow, they grew white and shining, like fine, glistening silver gauze. They spread over the vault of heaven above us, and right away towards the north. They certainly resembled aurora borealis, but perhaps they might be only light vapers hovering high up in the sky and catching the sunlight. I stood long looking at them. They were singularly still, but they were northern lights, changing gradually in the southwest into dark cloud streamers and ending in the dust cloud over the sun. Hansen saw them, too, later when it was dark. There was no doubt of their nature. His impression was that the aurora borealis spread from the sun over the whole vault of heaven, like the stripes on the inner skin of an orange. Sunday, November 5th. A great race on the ice was advertised for today. The course was measured, marked off, and decorated with flags. The cook had prepared the prizes, cakes numbered and properly graduated in size. The expectation was great, but it turned out that from excessive training during the few last days the whole crew were so stiff in the legs that they were not able to move. We got our prizes all the same, one man was blindfolded, and he decided who was to have each cake as it was pointed at. This just arrangement met with general approbation, and we all thought it a pleasanter way of getting the prizes than running half a mile for them. So it is Sunday once more, how the days dragged past. I work, read, think, and dream. Strum a little on the organ, go for a walk on the ice in the dark. Low on the horizon, in the south-west, there is the flush of the sun, a dark fierce red, as if of blood aglow with all life's smoldering longings, low and far off, like the dreamland of youth. Higher in the sky it melts into orange, and that into green and pale blue, and then comes deep blue, star-sown, and then infinite space where no dawn will ever break. In the north are quivering arches of faint aurora, trembling now like awakening longings, but presently as if at the touch of a magic wand, to storm as streams of light through the dark blue of heaven, never at peace, restless as the very soul of man. I can sit in gaze and gaze, my eyes entranced by the dream-glow yonder in the west, where the moon's thin pale silver sickle is dipping its point into the blood, and my soul is born beyond the glow to the sun, so far off now, and to the homecoming. Our task accomplished, we are making our way up the fjord as fast as sail and steam can carry us. On both sides of us the homeland lies, smiling in the sun, and then the sufferings of a thousand days and hours melt into a moment's inexpressible joy. Ugg, that was a bitter gust, I jump up and walk on. What am I dreaming about? So far yet from the goal, hundreds and hundreds of miles between us, ice and land and ice again, and we are drifting round and round in a ring, bewildered attaining nothing, only waiting, always waiting for what. I dreamt I lay on a grassy bank, and the sun shone warm and clear. I wakened on a desert isle, and the sky was black and drear. One more look at the star of home, the one that stood that evening over Cape Chelyooskin, and I creep on board, where the windmill is turning in the cold wind and the electric light is streaming out from the skylight upon the icy desolation of the arctic night. Wednesday November 8, the storm which we had had the two previous days, is quite gone down, not even enough breeze for the mill. We tried lighting the dog's sleep on the ice last night instead of bringing them on board in the evening as we have been doing lately. The result was that another dog was torn to pieces during the night. It was Ulbrand, the old brown toothless fellow that went this time. Job and Moses had gone the same way before. Yesterday evening's observations placed us in seventy-seven degrees, forty-three minutes north latitude, and one hundred thirty-eight degrees, eight minutes east longitude. This is farther south than we have been yet. No help for it, but it is a sorry state of matters, and that we are farther east than ever before is only a poor consolation. It is new moon again, and we may therefore expect pressure. The ice is, in fact, already moving. It began to split on Saturday and has broken up more each day. The channels have been of a good size, and the movement becomes more and more perceptible. Yesterday there was slight pressure, and we noticed it again this morning about five o'clock. Today the ice by the ship has opened, and we are almost afloat. Here I sit in the still winter night on the drifting ice flow and see only stars above me. Far off I see the threads of life twisting themselves into the intricate web which stretches unbroken from life's sweet morning dawn to the eternal death stillness of the ice. Thought follows thought. You pick the hole to pieces, and it seems so small. But high above all towers one form. Why did you take this voyage? Could I do otherwise? Can the river arrest its course and run uphill? My plan has come to nothing. That palace of theory which I reared in pride and self-confidence, high above all silly objections, has fallen like a house of cards at the first breath of wind. Build up the most ingenious theories, and you may be sure of one thing, that fact will defy them all. Was I so very sure? Yes, at times. But that was self-deception, intoxication. A secret doubt lurked behind all the reasoning. It seemed as though the longer I defended my theory the nearer I came to doubting it. No, there is no getting over the evidence of that Siberian driftwood. But if, after all, we are on the wrong track, what then? Only disappointed human hopes, nothing more. And even if we perish, what will it matter in the endless cycles of eternity? Thursday, November 9, I took temperatures and seawater samples today every ten yards from the surface to the bottom. The depth was nine and a half fathoms, an extraordinarily even temperature of thirty degrees Fahrenheit minus one point five centigrade through all the layers. I have noticed the same thing before as far south as this. So it is only polar water here? There is not much pressure, an inclination to it this morning and a little at eight o'clock this evening, also a few squeezes later when we were playing cards. Friday, November 10, this morning made despairing examinations of yesterday's water samples with Thorneau's electric apparatus. There must be absolute stillness on board when this is going on. The men are all terrified, slip about on tiptoe and talk in the lowest possible whispers, but presently one begins to hammer at something on deck and another to file in the engine room when the chief's commanding voice is at once heard ordering silence. These examinations are made by means of a telephone through which a very faint noise is heard which dies slowly away, the moment at which it stops must be exactly ascertained. I find remarkably little salt all the way to the bottom in the water here. It must be mixed with fresh water from the Siberian river. There was some pressure this morning going on till nearly noon and we heard the noise of it in several directions. In the afternoon the ice was quite slack, with a large opening alongside the port side of the ship. At half past seven, pretty strong pressure began, the ice crashing and grinding along the ship's side. About midnight the roar of packing was heard to the south. Saturday, November 11, there has been some pressure in the course of the day. The newly formed ice is about 15 inches thick. It is hard on the top, but looser and porous below. This particular piece of ice began to form upon a large opening in the night between the 27th and 28th October. So it has frozen 15 inches in 15 days. I observed that it froze 3 inches the first night and 5 inches altogether during the 3 first nights, so that it has taken 12 days to the last 10 inches. Even this small observation serves to show that the formation of ice goes on most easily, where the crust is thin, becoming more and more difficult as the thickness increases, until at a certain thickness, as we observed later, it stops altogether. It is curious that the pressure has gone on almost all day. No slackening, such as we have usually observed. Sunday, November 19, our life has gone on its usual monotonous routine since the 11th. The wind has been steadily from the south all the week, but today there is a little from north-northwest. We have had pressure several times and have heard sounds of it in the southeast. Except for this, the ice has been unusually quiet, and it is closed in tightly round the ship. Since the last strong pressure, we have probably 10 to 20 feet of ice packed in below us. Hansen today worked out an observation taken the day before yesterday, and surprised us with the welcome intelligence that we have traveled 44 minutes north and a little east since 8. We are now in 78 degrees 27 minutes north latitude, 139 degrees 23 minutes east longitude. This is farther east than we have been yet. For any sake, let us only keep on as we are going. The Fram is a warm, cozy abode. Whether the thermometer stands at 22 degrees above zero or 22 degrees below it, we have no fire in the stove. The ventilation is excellent, especially since we rigged up the air sail, which sends the whole winter's cold in through the ventilator. Right in spite of this, we sit here warm and comfortable with only a lamp burning. I am thinking of having the stove removed altogether. It is only in the way. At least as far as our protection from the winter cold is concerned, my calculations have turned out well. Neither do we suffer much from damp. It does collect and drop a little from the roof in one or two places, especially a stern in the four-man cabins. But nothing in comparison with what is common in other ships, and if we lighted the stove, it would disappear altogether. When I have burned a lamp for quite a short time in my cabin, every trace of damp is gone. These are extraordinary fellows for standing the cold. With a thermometer at 22 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, Benson goes up in his shirt and trousers to read the thermometer on deck. Monday, November 27th, the prevailing wind has been southerly, with sometimes a little east. The temperature still keeps between 13 degrees and 22 degrees below zero. In the hold it has fallen to 12 degrees. It has several times struck me that the streamers of the aurora borealis followed in the direction of the wind, from the wind's eye on the horizon. On Thursday morning, when we had very slight northeasterly wind, I even ventured to prophesy, from the direction of the streamers, that it would go round to the southeast, which it accordingly did. On the whole there has been much less of the aurora borealis lately than at the beginning of our drift. Still though it may have been faint, there has been a little every day. Tonight it is very strong again. These last days the moon has sometimes had rings round it, with mock moons and axes, accompanied by rather strange phenomena. When the moon stands so low that the ring touches the horizon, a bright field of light is formed where the horizon cuts the ring. Similar expanses of light are also formed where the perpendicular axis from the moon intersects the horizon. Faint rainbows are often to be seen in these shining light fields. Yellow is generally the strongest tint near the horizon, passing over into red and then into blue. Similar colors could also be distinguished in the mock moons. Sometimes there are two large rings, the one outside the other, and then there may be four mock moons. I have also seen part of a new ring above the usual one, meeting it at a tangent directly above the moon. As is well known, these various ring formations round the sun, as well as round the moon, are produced by the refraction of rays of light, by minute ice crystals floating in the air. We looked for pressure with full moon and spring tide on 23 November, but then and for several days afterwards the ice was quite quiet. On the afternoon of Saturday the 25th, however, its distant roar was heard from the south, and we have heard it from the same direction every day since. This morning it was very loud and came gradually nearer. At nine o'clock it was quite close to us, and this evening we hear it near us again. It seems, however, as if we had now got out of the groove to which the pressure principally confines itself. We were regularly in it before. The ice round us is perfectly quiet. The probability is that the last severe pressure packed it very tight about us, and that the cold sense has frozen it into such a thick strong mass that it offers great resistance while the weaker ice in other places yields to the pressure. The depth of the sea is increasing steadily, and we are drifting north. This evening Hansen has worked out the observations of the day before yesterday and finds that we are in seventy-nine degrees eleven minutes north latitude. That is good, and the way we ought to get on. It is the most northern point we have reached yet, and today we are in all likelihood still farther north. We have made good way these last days, and the increasing depth seems to indicate a happy change in the direction of our drift. Have we perhaps really found the right road at last? We are drifting about five minutes a day. The most satisfactory thing is that there has not been much wind lately, especially the two last days. Yesterday it was only about three feet per second. Today is perfectly still, and yet the depth has increased twenty-one fathoms forty meters in these two days. It seems as if there were an ortherly current after all. No doubt many disappointments await us yet, but why not rejoice while fortune smiles. Tuesday, November twenty-eighth. The disappointment lost no time in coming. There had been a mistake either in the observation or in Hansen's calculations. An altitude of Jupiter taken yesterday evening shows us to be in seventy-eight degrees thirty-six minutes north latitude. The soundings today showed seventy-four fathoms, one hundred forty-two meters of water, or about the same as yesterday, and the sounding line indicated a southwesterly drift. However anxious one is to take things philosophically, one can't help feeling a little depressed. I tried to find solace in a book, absorb myself in the learning of the Indians, their happy faith in transcendental powers, in the supernatural faculties of the soul and in a future life. Oh, if only one could get hold of a little supernatural power now and oblige the winds always to blow from the south. I went on deck this evening in rather a gloomy frame of mind, but was nailed to the spot the moment I got outside. There is the supernatural for you, the northern lights flashing in matchless power and beauty over the sky in all the colors of the rainbow. Seldom or never have I seen the colors so brilliant. The prevailing one at first was yellow, but that gradually flickered over into green, and then a sparkling ruby red began to show at the bottom of the rays on the underside of the arch, soon spreading over the whole arch. And now from the far away western horizon a fiery serpent writhed itself up over the sky, shining brighter and brighter as it came. It split into three, all brilliantly glittering. Then the colors changed. The serpent to the south turned almost ruby red with spots of yellow, the one in the middle yellow, and the one to the north greenish-white. Sheeps of rays swept along the sides of the serpents, driven through the ether-like waves before a storm wind. They sway backwards and forwards, now strong, now fainter again. The serpents reached and passed the zenith. Though I was thinly dressed and shivering with cold, I could not tear myself away till the spectacle was over, and only a faintly glowing fiery serpent near the western horizon showed where it had begun. When I came on deck later the masses of light had passed northwards and spread themselves in incomplete arches over the northern sky. If one wants to read mystic meanings into the phenomena of nature, here surely is the opportunity. The observation this afternoon showed us to be in seventy-eight degrees, thirty-eight minutes, forty-two seconds north latitude. This is anything but rapid progress. Wednesday, November twenty-ninth. Another dog has been bitten to death today, Fox, a handsome powerful animal. He was found lying dead and stiff on the ice at our stern this evening when they went to bring the dogs in, snug and performing her usual duty of watching the body. They are wretches, these dogs, but now I have given orders that someone must always watch them when they are out on the ice. Thursday, November thirtieth. The ledge showed a depth of exactly ninety-three fathoms, one hundred seventy meters today, and it seemed by the line as if we were drifting northwest. We are almost certainly further north now, hopes are rising and life is looking brighter again. My spirits are like a pendulum if one could imagine such an instrument giving all sorts of irregular swings backwards and forwards. It is no good trying to take the thing philosophically. I cannot deny that the question whether we are to return successful or unsuccessful affects me very deeply. It is quite easy to convince myself with the most incontrovertible reasoning that what really matters is to carry through the expedition, whether successfully or not, and get safe home again. I could not but undertake it, for my plan was one that I felt must succeed, and therefore it was my duty to try it. Well if it does not succeed, is that my affair? I have done my duty, done all that could be done, and can return home with an easy conscience to the quiet happiness I have left behind. What can it matter whether chance or whatever name you like to give it does or does not allow the plan to succeed and make our names immortal? The worth of the plan is the same, whether chance smiles or frowns upon it, and as to immortality happiness is all we want and that is not to be had here. I can say all this to myself a thousand times, I can bring myself to believe honestly that it is all a matter of indifference to me, but nonetheless my spirits change like the clouds of heaven according as the wind blows from this direction or from that, or the sounding show the depth to be increasing or not, or observations indicate a northerly or southerly drift. When I think of the many that trust us, think of Norway, think of all the friends that gave us their time, their faith and their money, the wish comes that they may not be disappointed, and I grow somber when our progress is not what we expected it would be. And she that gave most, does she deserve that her sacrifice should have been made in vain? Ah, yes, we must and will succeed. Sunday December 3, Sunday again with its feeling of peace and its permission to indulge in the narcotic of happy daydreams and let the hours go idly by without any prickings of conscience. Today the bottom was not reached with over one hundred thirty-five and a half fathoms, two hundred fifty meters of line. There was a northeasterly drift. Yesterday's observation showed us to be in seventy-eight degrees forty-four minutes north latitude. That is five minutes farther north than on Tuesday. It is horribly slow, but it is forward and forward we must go. There can be no question of that. This is the coldest day we have had yet, with a thermometer thirty-one degrees below zero, minus thirty-five point seven degrees centigrade, and a biting wind from the east-south-east. Observation in the afternoon shows seventy-eight degrees fifty minutes north latitude, that is six minutes farther north than on Saturday, or two minutes per day. In the afternoon we had magnificent Aurora Borealis, bearing arches across the whole vault of the sky from the east towards the west, but when I was on deck this evening the sky was overcast, only one star is shown through the cloudy veil, the home star. How I love it! It is the first thing my eye seeks, and it is always there shining on our path. I feel as if no ill could befall us as long as I see it there. Wednesday, December sixth. This afternoon the ice cracked, a-baffed the starboard quarter. This evening I see that the crack has opened. We may expect pressure now, as it is new moon either to-day or to-morrow. Thursday, December seventh. The ice pressed at the stern at five o'clock this morning for about an hour. I lay in my berth and listened to it creaking and grinding and roaring. There was slight pressure again in the afternoon, nothing to speak of, no slackening in the forenoon. Friday, December eighth. Pressure from seven till eight this morning. As I was sitting drawing in the afternoon I was startled by a sudden report or crash. It seemed to be straight overhead as if great masses of ice had fallen from the rigging onto the deck above my cabin. Everyone starts up and throws on some extra garment. Those that are taking an afternoon nap jump out of their berths right into the middle of the saloon, calling out to know what has happened. Peterson rushes up the companion ladder in such wild haste that he bursts open the door in the face of the mate who is standing in the passage holding back Kvick, who has also started in fright from the bed in the chart room where she is expecting her confinement. On deck we could discover nothing, except that the ice was in motion and seemed to be sinking slowly away from the ship. Big piles had been packed up under the stern this morning and yesterday. The explosion was probably caused by a violent pressure, suddenly loosening all the ice along the ship's side, the ship at the same time taking a strong list to port. There was no cracking of wood to be heard so that whatever it was, the from could not have been injured, but it was cold and we crept down again. As we were sitting at supper about six o'clock, pressure suddenly began. The ice creaked and roared so along the ship's sides close by us that it was not possible to carry on any connected conversation. We had to scream and all agreed with Nordolf when he remarked that it would be much pleasanter if the pressure would confine its operations to the bow instead of coming bothering us here aft. Just the noise we caught every now and again from the organ, a note or two of Cherolf's melody, I could not sleep for the nightingale's voice. The hurly-burly outside lasted for about twenty minutes and then all was still. Later in the evening Hanson came down to give notice of what really was a remarkable appearance of Aurora Borealis. The deck was brightly illuminated by it and reflections of its light played all over the ice. The whole sky was ablaze with it, but it was brightest in the south, high up in that direction glowed waving masses of fire. Later still Hanson came again to say that now it was quite extraordinary. No words can depict the glory that met our eyes. The glowing fire masses had divided into glistening many colored bands which were writhing and twisting across the sky both in the south and north. The rays sparkled with the purest, most crystalline rainbow colors, chiefly violet red or carbon and the clearest green. Most frequently the rays of the arch were red at the ends and changed higher up into sparkling green which quite at the top turned darker and went over into blue or violet before disappearing in the blue of the sky. For the rays in one in the same arch might change from clear red to clear green coming and going as if driven by a storm. It was an endless phantasmagoria of sparkling color surpassing anything that one can dream. Sometimes the spectacle reached such a climax that one's breath was taken away. One felt that now something extraordinary must happen, at the very least the sky must fall. But as one stands in breathless expectation down the whole thing trips as if in a few quick light-scale runs into bare nothingness. There is something almost undramatic about such a denouement, but it is all done with such confident assurance that one cannot take it amiss. One feels oneself in the presence of a master who has the complete command of his instrument. With a single stroke of the bow he descends lightly and elegantly from the height of passion into quiet everyday strains only with a few more strokes to work himself up into passion again. It seems as if he were trying to mock, to tease us. When we are on the point of going below, driven by sixty-one degrees of frost, minus thirty-four point seven degrees centigrade, such magnificent tones again vibrate over the strings that we stay until noses and ears are frozen. For a finale there is a wild display of fireworks in every tint of flame. Such a conflagration that one expects every minute to have it down on the ice because there is not room for it in the sky. But I can hold out no longer, thinly dressed, without a proper cap and without gloves, I have no feeling left in body or limbs, and I crawl away below. End of File Ten. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Sharon Riscadal. Farthest North by Fritjof Nansen, Volume One. Chapter Six The Winter Night, Part Three Sunday, December 10th. Another peaceful Sunday. The motto for the day in the English Almanac is, He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper, but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances, Hume. Very true, and exactly the philosophy I am practicing at this moment. I am lying on my birth in the light of the electric lamp, eating cake and drinking beer whilst I am writing my journal. Presently I shall take a book and settle down to read and sleep. The arc lamp has shown like a sun today over a happy company. We have no difficulty now in distinguishing hearts from diamonds on our dirty cards. It is wonderful what an effect light has. I believe I am becoming a fire worshiper. It is strange enough that fire worship should not exist in the Arctic countries. For the sons of men, fire is the best and the sight of the sun. A newspaper appears on board now. Framsha, news of or outlook from, the from, is its name, and our doctor is its irresponsible editor. The first number was read aloud this evening and gave occasion for much merriment. Amongst its contents are winter in the ice, contribution to the infant Framsha. Far in the ice there lies a ship boys, mast and sail, ice to the very tip boys. But perfectly clear, if you listen you can hear, there is life and fun on board that ship boys. What can it be? Come along and see. It is Nansen and his men that laugh boys. Nothing to be heard at night but glasses clink boys, fall of greasy cards and counters chink boys. If he won't declare, nor dole he will swear, Benson is stupid as an owl boys, Benson cool boys is not a fool boys. You're another quickly he replies boys. Among those sitting at the table boys is Haika with his body big and stable boys. He and Lars so keen it would almost seem they would stake their lives if they were able boys. Amundsen again looks at these two men, shakes his head and sadly goes to bed boys. Sverder, blessing, Hansen and our moan boys, say of marriage this game is our own boys. Soon for them alas the happy hour is past and Hansen he says, come away old moan boys. It is getting late and the stars won't wait. You and I must up and out alone boys. The doctor here on board has not to do boys, not a man to test his skill among the crew boys. Well may he look blue, there's not for him to do when every man is strong and hearty too boys. Now on the frown boys he says I am boys, chief editor of newspaper for you boys. Warning, I think it is my duty to warn the public that a traveling watchmaker has been making the rounds of this neighborhood lately, getting watches to repair and not returning them to their owners. How long is this to be allowed to go on under the eyes of the authorities? The watchmaker's appearance is as follows, middle height, fair, gray eyes, brown full beard, round shoulders and generally delicate looking, a yule. The person above notified was in our office yesterday asking for work and we consider it right to add the following particulars as completing the description. He generally goes about with a pack of mongrel curves at his heels. He choose tobacco and of this his beard shows traces. This is all we have to say as we did not consider ourselves either entitled or called upon to put him under the microscope. Editor Framsha. Yesterday's observation placed us in 79 degrees, zero minutes north latitude, 139 degrees, 14 minutes east longitude. At last then we have got as far north again as we were in the end of September and now the northerly drift seems to be steady, 10 minutes in four days. Monday, December 11th. This morning I took a long excursion to westward. It is hard work struggling over the packed ice in the dark, something like scrambling about a moraine of big boulders at night. Once I took a step in the air, fell forward and bruised my right knee. It is mild today, only nine and a half degrees Fahrenheit below zero minus 23 degrees centigrade. This evening there was a strange appearance of aurora borealis, white shining clouds which I thought at first must be lit up by the moon but there is no moon yet. They were bright cumuli or serocumuli shifting into a brightly shining macro sky. I stood and watched them as long as my thin clothing permitted but there was no perceptible pulsation, no play aflame, they sailed quietly on. The light seemed to be strongest in the southeast where there were also dark clouds to be seen. Hanson said that it moved over later into the northern sky. Clouds came and went and for a time there were many white shining ones, white as lambs he called them but no aurora played behind them. In this day's meteorological journal I find noted for 4 p.m. faint aurora borealis in the north, some distinct branching or antlers, there of ribbon crimped like blonde in some diffused patches on the horizon in the north northeast. In his aurora borealis journal, Hanson describes that of this evening as follows, about 8 p.m. and aurora borealis as the arch of light was observed stretching from east-south-east to northwest through the zenith, diffused quiet intensity, 3 to 4, most intense in northwest. The arch spread at the zenith by a wave to the south. At ten o'clock there was a fainter aurora borealis in the southern sky. Eight minutes later it extended to the zenith and two minutes after this there was a shining broad arch across the zenith with intensity six. Twelve seconds later flaming rays shot from the zenith in an easterly direction. During the next half-hour there was constant aurora chiefly in bands across or near the zenith or lower in the southern sky. The observation ended about 10.38. The intensity was then two, the aurora diffused over the southern sky. There were cumulus clouds of varying closeness all the time. They came up in the southeast at the beginning of the observation and disappeared towards the end of it. They were closest about 10 minutes past 10. At the time that the broad shining arch through the zenith was at its highest intensity, the cumulus clouds in the northwest shone quite white though we were unable to detect any aurora borealis phenomena in this quarter. The reflection of light on the ice field was pretty strong at the same time. In the aurora borealis the cumulus clouds appeared of a darker color, almost the gray of wool. The colors of the aurora were yellowish, bluish-white, milky blue-cold coloring. According to the meteorological journal there was still aurora borealis in the southern sky at midnight. Tuesday, December 12th had a long walk southeast this morning. The ice is in much the same condition there as it is to the west, packed or pressed up into mounds with flat flows between. This evening the dogs suddenly began to make a great commotion on deck. We were all deep in cards, some playing quiz, others marriage. I had no shoes on, so said that someone else must go up and see what was the matter. Moxded went. The noise grew worse and worse. Presently Moxded came down and said that all the dogs that could get at the rail were up on it, barking out into the dark towards the north. He was sure there must be an animal of some sort there, but perhaps it was only a fox, for he thought he had heard the bark of a fox far in the north, but he was not sure. Well, it must be a devil of a fox to excite the dogs like that. As the disturbance continued I at last went up myself, followed by Johansson. From different positions we looked long and hard into the darkness in the direction in which the dogs were barking, but we could see nothing moving. That something must be there was quite certain, and I had no doubt that it was a bear, for the dogs were almost beside themselves. Pan looked up in my face with an odd expression as if he had something important to tell me and then jumped up on the rail and barked away to the north. The dog's excitement was quite remarkable. They had not been so keen when the bear was close in to the side of the ship. However, I contented myself with remarking that the thing to do would be to lose some dogs and go north with them over the ice, but these wretched dogs won't tackle a bear, and besides it is so dark that there is hardly a chance of finding anything. If it is a bear he will come again. At this season when he is so hungry he will hardly go right away from all the good food for him here on board. I struck about with my arms to get a little heat into me, then went below and to bed. The dogs went on barking, sometimes louder than before. Nordahl, whose watch it was, went up several times, but could discover no reason for it. As I was lying, reading in my berth, I heard a peculiar sound. It was like boxes being dragged about on deck, and there was also scraping, like a dog that wanted to get out, scratching violently at a door. I thought of Kovik, who was shut up in the chart room. I called into the saloon to Nordahl that he had better go up again and see what this new noise was. He did so, but came back saying that there was still nothing to be seen. It was difficult to sleep, and I lay long tossing about. Peter came on watch. I told him to go up and turn the airsail to the wind to make the ventilation better. He was a good time on deck doing this and other things, but he also could see no reason for the to-do the dogs were still making. He had to go forward and then noticed that the three dogs nearest the starboard gangway were missing. He came down and told me, and we agreed that possibly this might be what all the excitement was about, but never before had they taken it so to heart when some of their member had run away. At last I fell asleep, but I heard them in my sleep for a long time. Wednesday, December 13th. Before I was rightly awake this morning, I heard the dogs at it still, and the noise went on all the time of breakfast and had, I believe, gone on all night. After breakfast, Mogstead and Peter went up to feed the wretched creatures and let them loose on the ice. Three were still missing. Peter came down to get a lantern. He thought he might as well look if there were any tracks of animals. Jakobson called after him that he had better take a gun. No, he did not need one, he said. A little later as I was sitting sorrowfully absorbed in the calculation of how much petroleum we have used and how short a time our supply will last if we go on burning it at the same rate, I heard a scream at the top of the companion. Come with a gun. In a moment I was in the saloon and there was Peter tumbling in at the door, breathlessly shouting, a gun, a gun. The bear had bitten him in the side. I was thankful that it was no worse hearing him put on so much dialect. I had thought it was a matter of life and death. I seized one gun, he another, and up we rushed, the mate with his gun after us. There was not much difficulty in knowing in what direction to turn for from the rail on the starboard side came confused shouts of human voices and from the ice below the gangway the sound of a frightful uproar of dogs. I tore out the toe plug at the muzzle of my rifle then up with the lever and in with the cartridge it was a case of hurry. But hang it, there is a plug in at this end too. I poked and poked but could not get a grip of it. Peter screamed, shoot, shoot, mine won't go off. He stood clicking and clicking, his lock full of frozen Vaseline again while the bear lay chewing at a dog just below us at the ship's side. Beside me stood the mate groping after a toe plug which he also had shoved down into his gun but now he flung the gun anchorly away and began to look round the deck for a walrus spear to stick the bear with. Our fourth man, Mogstead, was waving an empty rifle. He had shot away his cartridges and shouting to someone to shoot the bear. Four men and not one that could shoot although we could have prodded the bear's back with our gun barrels. Hanson, making a fifth, was lying in the passage to the chart room groping with his arm through a chink in the door for cartridges. He could not get the door to open because of Kovic's kennel. At last you Hanson appeared and sent a ball straight down into the bear's hide. That did some good. The monster let go the dog and gave a growl. Another shot flashed and hissed down on the same spot. One more and we saw the white dog the bear had under him jump up and run off while the other dogs stood round barking. Another shot still for the animal began to stir a little. At this moment my plug came out and I gave him a last ball through the head to make sure. The dogs had crowded round barking as long as he moved but now that he lay still in death they drew back terrified. They probably thought it was some new ruse of the enemy. It was a little thin one-year-old bear that had caused all this terrible commotion. Whilst it was being flayed I went off in a northwesterly direction to look for the dogs that were still missing. I had not gone far when I noticed that the dogs that were following me had caught scent of something to the north and wanted to go that way. Soon they got frightened and I could not get them to go on. They kept close into my side or slunk behind me. I held my gun ready while I crawled on all fours over the pack eyes which was anything but level. I kept a steady look out ahead but it was not far my eyes could pierce in that darkness. I could only just see the dogs like black shadows when they were a few steps away from me. I expected every moment to see a huge form rise among the hummocks ahead or come rushing towards me. The dogs got more and more cautious. One or two of them sat down but they probably felt that it would be a shame to let me go on alone so they followed slowly after. Terrible ice to force one's way over. Crawling along on hands and knees does not put one in a very convenient position to shoot from if the bear should make a sudden rush. But unless he did this or attacked the dogs I had no hope of getting him. We now came out on some flat ice. It was only too evident that there must be something quite near now. I went on and presently saw a dark object on the ice in front of me. It was not unlike an animal. I bent down, it was poor Johansson's friend, the black dog with a white tip to his tail in a sad state and frozen stiff. Beside him was something else dark. I bent down again and found the second of the missing dogs, brother of the corpse watcher, Suggan. This one was almost whole, only eaten a little about the head and it was not frozen quite stiff. There seemed to be blood all round on the ice. I looked about in every direction but there was nothing more to be seen. The dog stood at a respectful distance, staring and sniffing in the direction of their dead comrades. Some of us went not long after this to fetch the dog's carcasses, taking a lantern to look for bear tracks in case there had been some big fellows along with the little one. We scrambled on among the pack ice. Come this way with the lantern, Benson. I think I see tracks here. Benson came and we turned the light on some indentations in the snow. They were bear paw marks, sure enough, but only the same little fellows. Look, the brute has been dragging a dog after him here. By the light of the lantern we traced the blood-marked path on among the hummocks. We found the dead dogs but no footprints except small ones which we all thought must be those of our little bear. Swarton, alias Johansson's friend, looked bad in the lantern light. Flesh and skin and entrails were gone. There was nothing to be seen but a bare breast and backbone with some stumps of ribs. It was a pity that the fine, strong dog should come to such an end. He had just one fault he was rather bad-tempered. He had a special dislike to Johansson. Barked and showed his teeth whenever he came on deck or even opened a door, and when he sat whistling in the top or in the crow's nest these dark winter days, the friend would answer with a howl of rage from far out on the ice. Johansson bent down with the lantern to look at the remains. Are you glad, Johansson, that your enemy is done for? No, I'm sorry. Why? Because we did not make it up before he died. And we went on to look for more bear tracks but found none, so we took the dead dogs on our backs and turned homewards. On the way I asked Peter what had really happened with him and the bear. Well, you see, said he, when I came along with the lantern we saw a few drops of blood by the gangway but that might quite well have been a dog that had cut itself. On the ice below the gangway we saw some bear tracks and we started away west, the whole pack of dogs with us running on far ahead. When we had got away a bit from the ship there was suddenly an awful row in front and it wasn't long before a great beast came rushing at us with the whole troop of dogs around it. As soon as we saw what it was we turned and ran our best for the ship. Moxdad, you see, he had moccasins, comogger on, and knew his way better and got there before me. I couldn't get along so fast with my great wooden shoes and in my confusion I got right onto the big hammock to the west of the ship's bow, you know. I turned here and lighted back to see if the bear was behind me but I saw nothing and pushed on again and in a minute these slippery wooden shoes had me flat on my back among the hammocks. I was up again quick enough but when I got down onto the flat ice close to the ship I saw something coming straight for me on the right hand side. First I thought it was a dog, it's not so easy to see in the dark, you know. I had no time for a second thought for the beast jumped on me and bit me in the side. I had lifted my arm like this, you see, and so he caught me here right on the hip. He growled and hissed as he bit. What did you think then, Peter? What did I think? I thought it was all up with me. What was I to do? I had neither gun nor knife but I took the lantern and gave him such a whack on the head with it that the thing broke and went flying away over the ice. The moment he felt the blow he sat down and looked at me. I was just taking to my heels when he got up. I don't know whether it was to grip me again or what it was for but anyhow at that minute he caught sight of a dog coming and set off after it and I got on board. Did you scream, Peter? Scream, I screamed with all my might and apparently this was true for he was quite hoarse. But where was Mox dead all this time? Well, you see he had reached the ship long before me but he never thought of running down and giving the alarm but takes his gun from the roundhouse wall and thinks he'll manage all right alone but his gun wouldn't go off and the bear would have had time to eat me up before his nose. We were now near the ship and Mox dead who had heard the last part of the story from the deck corrected it in so far that he had just reached the gangway when Peter began to roar. He jumped up and fell back three times before he got on board and had no time to do anything then but seize his gun and go to Peter's assistance. When the bear left Peter and rushed after the dogs he soon had the whole pack about him again. Now he would make a spring and get one below him but then all the rest would set upon him and jump on his back so that he had to turn to defend himself. Then he would spring upon another dog and the whole pack would be on him again and so the dance went on backwards and forwards over the ice until they were once more close to the ship. A dog stood there below the gangway wanting to get on board. The bear made a spring on it and it was there by the ship side that the villain met his fate. An examination on board showed that the hook of Spartan's leash was pulled out quite straight. Gamelan's was broken through but the third dogs was only wrenched a little. It hardly looked as if the bear had done it. I had a slight hope that this dog might still be in life but though we searched well we could not find it. It was altogether a deplorable story to think that we should have let a bear scramble on board like this and should have lost three dogs at once. Our dogs are dwindling down. We have only 26 now. That was a wily demon of a bear to be such a little one. He had crawled on board by the gangway, shoved away a box that was standing in front of it, taken the dog that stood nearest and gone off with it. When he had satisfied the first pangs of his hunger he had come back and fetched number two and if he had been allowed he would have continued the performance until the deck was cleared of dogs. Then he would probably have come bumping downstairs and beckoned with cold hand into the galley door to Ewell. It must have been a pleasant feeling for a Spartan to stand there in the dark and see the bear come creeping in upon him. When I went below after this bear affair Ewell said as I passed the galley door, you'll see that Kvick will have her pups today for it's always the way here on board that things happen together and sure enough when we were sitting in the saloon in the evening, Mogstead, who generally plays Master of the Hounds, came and announced the arrival of the first. Soon there was another and then one more. This news was a little balsam to our wounds. Kvick has got a good warm box lined with fur up in the passage on the starboard. It is so warm there that she is lying sweating and we hope that the young ones will live in spite of 54 degrees of frost. It seems this evening as if everyone had some hesitation in going out on the ice unarmed. Our bayonet knives have been brought out and I am providing myself with one. I must say that I felt quite certain that we should find no bears as far north as this in the middle of winter and it never occurred to me in making long excursions on the ice without so much as a pen knife in my pocket that I was liable to encounters with them. But after Peter's experience it seems as if it might be as well to have at any rate a lantern to hit them with. The long bayonet knife shall accompany me henceforth. They often chafed Peter afterwards about having screamed so horribly when the bear seized him. Hmm, I wonder, said he, if there aren't others that would have screeched just as loud. I had to yell after the fellows that were so afraid of frightening the bear that when they ran they covered seven yards at each stride. Thursday, December 14th. Well, Moxton, how many pups have you now? I asked at breakfast. There are five now. But soon after he came down to tell me that there were at least 12. Gracious, that is good value for what we have lost. But we were almost as pleased when Johansson came down and said that he heard the missing dog howling on the ice far away to the northwest. Several of us went up to listen, and we could all hear him quite well, but it sounded as if he were sitting still, howling in despair. Perhaps he was at an opening in the ice that he could not get across. Blessing had also heard him during his night watch, but then the sound had come more from a southwesternly direction. When Peter went after breakfast to feed the dogs, there was the last one, standing below the gangway, wanting to get on board. Hungry he was, he dashed straight into the food dish, but otherwise, hail and hearty. This evening Peter came and said that he was certain he heard a bear moving about and pawing the ice. He and Peterson had stood and listened to him scraping at the snow crust. I put on my pask, a fur blouse, got hold of my double-barreled rifle and went on deck. The whole crew were collected aft, gazing out into the night. We let loose Ylenka and Pan and went in the direction where the bear was said to be. It was pitch dark, but the dogs would find the tracks if there was anything there. Hansen thought he had seen something moving about the hammock near the ship, but we found and heard nothing, and as several of the others had by this time come out on the ice and could also discover nothing, we scrambled on board again. It is extraordinary all the sounds that one can fancy one hears out on that great still space mysteriously lighted by the twinkling stars. Friday, December 15th. This morning Peter saw a fox on the ice astern and he saw it again later when he was out with the dogs. There is something remarkable about this appearance of bears and foxes now after our seeing no life for so long. The last time we saw a fox we were far south of this, possibly near Santa Cuff land. Can we have come into the neighborhood of land again? I inspected Kvick's pups in the afternoon. There were 13, a curious coincidence. 13 pups on December 13th for 13 men. Five were killed. Kvick can manage eight, but more would be bad for her. Poor mother, she was very anxious about her young ones wanted to jump up into the box beside them and take them from us, and you can see that she is very proud of them. Peter came this evening and said that there must be a ghost on the ice, for he heard exactly the same sounds of walking and pawing as yesterday evening. This seems to be a populous region after all. According to an observation taken on Tuesday, we must be pretty nearly in 79 degrees, eight minutes north latitude. That was eight minutes drift in the three days from Saturday. We are getting on better and better. Why will it not snow? Christmas is near and what is Christmas without snow? Thickly falling snow. We have not had one snowfall all the time we have been drifting. The hard grains that come down now and again are nothing. Oh, the beautiful white snow, falling so gently and silently, softening every hard outline with its sheltering purity. There is nothing more deliciously restful, soft and white. This snowless ice plane is like a life without love, nothing to soften it. The marks of all the battles and pressures of the ice stand forth just as when they were made, rugged and difficult to move among. Love is life's snow. It falls deepest and softest into the gashes left by the fight, whiter and pure than the snow itself. What is life without love? It is like this ice, a cold, bare, rugged mass. The wind driving it and rending it and then forcing it together again. Nothing to cover over the open rifts. Nothing to break the violence of the collisions. Nothing to round away the sharp corners of the broken flows. Nothing, nothing but bare, rugged, drift ice. Saturday, December 16th. In the afternoon, Peter came quietly into the saloon and said that he heard all sorts of noises on the ice. There was a sound to the north exactly like that of ice-packing against land and then suddenly there was such a roar through the air that the dogs started up and barked. Poor Peter, they laugh at him when he comes down to give an account of his many observations but there is not one among us as sharp as he is. Wednesday, December 20th. As I was sitting at breakfast, Peter came roaring that he believed he had seen a bear on the ice and that Pan set off the moment he was loosed. I rushed on to the ice with my gun. Several men were to be seen in the moonlight but no bear. It was long before Pan came back. He had followed him far to the northwest. Sverdrup and Smith Lars in partnership have made a great bear trap which was put out on the ice today. As I was afraid of more dogs than bears being caught in it, it was hung from a gallows too high for the dogs to jump up to the piece of blubber which hangs this bait right in the mouth of the trap. All the dogs spend the evening now sitting on the rail barking at this new man they see out there on the ice in the moonlight. Thursday, December 21st. It is extraordinary after all how the time passes. Here we are at the shortest day, though we have no day. But now we are moving on to light and summer again. We tried to sound today, had out 2,100 meters over 1,100 fathoms of line without reaching the bottom. We have no more line. What is to be done? Who could have guessed that we should find such deep water? There has been an arc of light in the sky all day, opposite the moon, so it is a lunar rainbow, but without colors so far as I have been able to see. Friday, December 22nd. A bear was shot last night. Jakobson saw it first during his watch. He shot at it. It made off and he then went down and told about it in the cabin. Mogstead and Peter came on deck. Sverdrup was called too and came up a little later. They saw the bear on his way towards the ship again, but he suddenly cut sight of the gallows with the trap on the ice to the west and went off there. He looked well at the apparatus, then raised himself cautiously on his hind legs and laid his right paw on the crossbeam just beside the trap. Stared for a little, hesitating, at the delicious morsel, but did not at all like the ugly jaws round it. Sverdrup was by this time out at the deck house, watching in the sparkling moonshine. His heart was jumping. He expected every moment to hear the snap of his trap. But the bear shook his head suspiciously, lowered himself cautiously onto all fours again, and snuffed carefully at the wire that the trap was fastened by, following it along to where it was made fast to a great block of ice. He went round this and saw how cleverly it was all arranged, then slowly followed the wire back, raised himself up as before with his paw on the beam of the gallows, had a long look at the trap and shook his head again, probably saying to himself, these wily fellows have planned this very cleverly for me. Now he resumed his march to the ship. When he was within sixty paces of the bow, Peter fired. The bear fell, but jumped up again and made off. Jakobson, Sverdrup, and Mogstead all fired now, and he fell among some hummocks. He was flayed at once, and in the skin there was only the whole of one ball which had gone through him from behind the shoulder blade. Peter, Jakobson, and Mogstead all claimed this ball. Sverdrup gave up his claim as he had stood so far astern. Mogstead, seeing the bear fall directly after his shot, called out, I gave him that one. Jakobson swears that it was he that hit, and Benson, who was standing looking on, is prepared to take his oath anywhere that it was Peter's ball that did the deed. The dispute upon this weighty point remained unsettled during the whole course of the expedition. Beautiful moonlight, pressure in several directions. Today we carried our supply of gun-cotton and cannon and rifle-powder on deck. It is safer there than in the hold. In case of fire or other accident, an explosion in the hold might blow the ship's sides out and send us to the bottom before we had time to turn round. Some we put on the forecastle, some on the bridge. From these places it would be quickly thrown on to the ice. Saturday, December 23rd, what we call in Norway little Christmas Eve. I went a long way west this morning, coming home late. There was packed up ice everywhere, with flat flows between. I was turned by a newly formed opening in the ice, which I dared not cross on the thin layer of fresh ice. In the afternoon as a first Christmas entertainment we tried an ice-blasting with four prisms of gun-cotton. A hole was made with one of the large iron drills we had brought with us for this purpose, and the charge, with the end of the electric connecting wire, was sunk about a foot below the surface of the ice. Then all retired, the knob was touched, there was a dull crash, and water and pieces of ice were shot up into the air. Although it was sixty yards off, it gave the ship a good jerk that shook everything on board and brought the whore-frost down from the rigging. The explosion blew a hole through the four feet thick ice, but its only other effect was to make small cracks round this hole. Sunday, December 24th, Christmas Eve. Sixty-seven degrees of cold, minus thirty-seven degrees centigrade, glittering moonlight, and the endless stillness of the Arctic night. I took a solitary stroll over the ice, the first Christmas Eve, and how far away. The observation shows us to be, in seventy-nine degrees, eleven minutes north latitude, there is no drift, two minutes farther south than six days ago. There are no further particulars given of this day in the diary, but when I think of it, how clearly it all comes back to me. There was a peculiar elevation of mood on board that was not at all common among us. Every man's, in most thoughts, were with those at home, but his comrades were not to know that, and so there was more joking and laughing than usual. All the lamps and lights we had on board were lit, and every corner of the saloon and cabins was brilliantly illuminated. The bill of fare for the day, of course, surpassed any previous one. Food was the chief thing we had to hold festival with. The dinner was a very fine one, indeed. So was the supper, and after it, piles of Christmas cakes came on the table. Ewell had been busy making them for several weeks. After that we enjoyed a glass of toddy and a cigar, smoking in the saloon, being, of course, allowed. The culminating point of the festival came when two boxes with Christmas presents were produced. The one was from Hanson's mother, the other from his fiancée, Miss Fogner. It was touching to see the childlike pleasure with which each man received his gift. It might be a pipe or a knife or some little knick-knack. He felt that it was like a message from home. After this there were speeches, and then the fromchia appeared with an illustrated supplement, selections from which are given. The drawings are the work of the famous Arctic draftsman, Huttu Tu. Here are two verses from the poem for the day. When the ship's path is stopped by fathom thick ice and winter's white covering is spread, when we're quite given up to the power of the stream, Huttu's then that so often of home we must dream. We wish them all joy at this sweet Christmas tide, health and happiness for the next year. Ourself's patience to wait, to bring us to the pole and home the next spring, never fear. There were many more poems amongst others when giving some account of the principal events of the last weeks in this style. Bears are seen and dogs are born. Cakes are baked, both small and large. Henricksson, he does not fall, spite of bears most vile and charged, moxed it with his rifle-clicks, Yacobson with long lance-sticks, and so on. There was a long diddy on the subject of the dog-rape on board the Fromm. Up and down on a night so cold, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, walk harpooner and kennelman-bold, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom. Our kennelman swings, I need hardly tell, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, the long, long lash you know so well, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom. Our harpooner, he is a man of light, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, a burning lantern he grasps tight, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom. As they walk, the time beguile, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, with tales of bears and all their while, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom. Now suddenly, a bear they see, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, before whom all the dogs do flee, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom. Kennelman, like a deer, runs fast, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, harpooner's slow comes in the last, kv-v-vip-vip-bom-bom, and so on. Among the announcements are, instruction in fencing. In consequence of the indefinite postponement of our departure, a limited number of pupils can be received for instruction in both fencing and boxing. Mahakoft, teacher of boxing, next door to the doctors. Again, on account of want of storage room, a quantity of old clothes are at present for sale by private arrangement at number two, Pump Lane. Repeated requests to remove them, having been of no effect, I am obliged to dispose of them in this way. The clothes are quite fresh, having been in salt for a long time. After the reading of the newspaper came instrumental music and singing, and it was far on in the night before we sought our births. Monday, December 25th, Christmas Day. Thermometer at minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit, minus 38 degrees centigrade, below zero. I took a walk south in the beautiful light of the full moon. At a newly made crack, I went through the fresh ice with one leg and got soaked. But such an accident matters very little in this frost. The water immediately stiffens into ice. It does not make one very cold, and one feels dry again soon. They will be thinking much of us, just now at home and giving many a pitying sigh over all the hardships we are enduring in this cold, cheerless, icy region. But I am afraid their compassion would cool if they could look in upon us, hear the merriment that goes on and see all our comforts in good cheer. They can hardly be better off at home. I myself have certainly never lived a more cyberatic life and have never had more reason to fear the consequences it brings in its train. Just listen to today's dinner menu. Ox tail soup, fish pudding with potatoes and melted butter, roast of reindeer with peas, French beans, potatoes and cranberry jam, cloudberries with cream, cake and marzipan, a welcome present from the baker to the expedition, we blessed that man. And along with all this, that ringness bachbier, which is so famous in our part of the world, was this the sort of dinner for men who are to be hardened against the horrors of the Arctic night? Everyone had eaten so much that supper had to be skipped altogether. Later in the evening, coffee was served with pineapple preserve, gingerbread, vanilla cakes, coconut macaroons and various other cakes, all the work of our excellent cook, Ewell, and we ended up with figs, almonds and raisins. Now let us have the breakfast just to complete the day. Coffee, freshly baked bread, beautiful Danish butter, Christmas cake, cheddar cheese, clove cheese, tongue, corned beef and marmalade. And if anyone thinks that this is especially good breakfast because it is Christmas day, he is wrong. It is just what we have always with the addition of the cake, which is not part of the everyday diet. Add now to this good cheer our strongly built safe house, our comfortable saloon, lighted up with a large petroleum lamp and several smaller ones when we have no electric light, constant gaiety, card playing and books in any quantity, with or without illustrations, good and entertaining reading and then a good sound sleep. What more could one wish? But, O Arctic night, thou art like a woman, a marvelously lovely woman. Thine are the noble, pure outlines of antique beauty with its marble coldness. On thy high smooth brow, clear with the clearness of ether, is no trace of compassion for the little sufferings of despised humanity, on thy pale, beautiful cheek, no blush of feeling. Among thy raven locks waving out into space, the whorefrost has sprinkled its glittering crystals. The proud lines of thy throat, thy shoulders curves are so noble, but, O unbendingly cold, thy bosom's white chastity is feelingless as the snowy ice. Chased, beautiful and proud, thou floatest through ether over the frozen sea, thy glittering garment woven of aurora beams covering the vault of heaven. But sometimes I divine a twitch of pain on thy lips, an endless sadness dreams in thy dark eye. O how tired I am of thy cold beauty, I long to return to life. Let me get home again as conqueror or as beggar, what does that matter? But let me get home to begin life anew. The years are passing here, and what do they bring? Nothing but dust, dry dust, which the first wind blows away, new dust comes in its place, and the next wind takes it too. Truth, why should we always make so much of truth? Life is more than cold truth, and we live but once. Tuesday, December 26th, 36 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, minus 38 degrees centigrade. This, the same as yesterday's, is the greatest cold we have had yet. I went a long way north today, found a big lane covered with newly frozen ice, with a quite open piece of water in the middle. The ice rocked up and down under my steps, sending waves out into the open pool. It was strange once more to see the moonlight playing on the cold black waves, and awakened a remembrance of well-known scenes. I followed this lane far to the north, seemed to see the outlines of Highland in the hazy light below the moon, and went on and on. But in the end it turned out to be a bank of clouds behind the moonlit vapor rising from the open water. I saw from a high hummock that this opening stretched north as far as the eye could reach. The same luxurious living as yesterday, a dinner of four courses, shooting with darts at a target for cigarettes has been the great excitement of the day. Darts and target are Johansson's Christmas present from Miss Fogner. Wednesday, December 27th. Wind began to blow this afternoon, 19 and a half to 26 feet per second. The windmill is going again, and the arc lamp once more brightens our lives. Johansson gave notice of a shooting match by electric light with free concert for the evening. It was a pity for himself that he did, for he and several others were shot into bankruptcy and beggary, and had to retire one after the other, leaving their cigarettes behind them. Thursday, December 28th. A little forward of the from, there is a broad newly formed open lane in which she could lie crossways. It was covered with last night's ice in which slight pressure began today. It is strange how indifferent we are to this pressure, which was the cause of such great trouble to many earlier Arctic navigators. We have not so much as made the smallest preparation for possible accident, no provisions on deck, no tent, no clothing and readiness. This may seem like recklessness, but in reality there's not the slightest prospect of the pressure harming us. We know now what the from can bear. Proud of our splendid strong ship, we stand on her deck, watching the ice come hurtling against her sides, being crushed and broken there and having to go down below her while new ice masses tumble upon her out of the dark to meet the same fate. Here and there, amid deafening noise, some great mass rises up and launches itself threateningly upon the bulwarks, only to sink down suddenly, dragged the same way as the others. But at times when one hears the roaring of tremendous pressure in the night, as a rule so deathly still, one cannot but call to mind the disasters that this uncontrollable power has wrought. I am reading the story of Cain's expedition just now. Unfortunate man, his preparations were miserably inadequate. It seems to me to have been a reckless, unjustifiable proceeding to set out with such equipments. Almost all the dogs died of bad food. All the men had scurvy from the same cause with snow blindness, frostbites and all kinds of miseries. He learned a wholesome awe of the Arctic night and one can hardly wonder at it. He writes on page 173, I feel that we are fighting the battle of life at disadvantage and that an Arctic day and an Arctic night age a man more rapidly and harshly than a year anywhere else in this weary world. In another place he writes that it is impossible for civilized men not to suffer in such circumstances. These were sad but by no means unique experiences. An English Arctic explorer with whom I had some conversation also expressed himself very discouragingly on the subject of life in the polar regions and combatted my cheerful faith in the possibility of preventing scurvy. He was of opinion that it was inevitable and that no expedition yet had escaped it though some might have given it another name rather a humiliating view to take of the matter, I think. But I am fortunately in a position to maintain that it is not justified and I wonder if they would not both change their opinions if they were here. For my own part I can say that the Arctic night has had no aging, no weakening influence of any kind upon me. I seem on the contrary to grow younger. This quiet, regular life suits me remarkably well and I cannot remember a time when I was in better bodily health balance than I am at present. I differ from these other authorities to the extent of feeling inclined to recommend this region as an excellent sanatorium in cases of nervousness and general breakdown, this is in all sincerity. I am almost ashamed of the life we lead with none of those darkly painted sufferings of the long winter night which are indispensable to a properly exciting Arctic expedition. We shall have nothing to write about when we get home. I may say the same of my comrades as I have said for myself. They all look healthy, fat, in good condition. None of the traditional pale hollow faces, no low spirits, anyone hearing the laughter that goes on in the saloon, the fall of greasy cards, et cetera, C. Ewell's poem, would be in no doubt about this. But how indeed should there be any illness? With the best of food of every kind, as much of it as we want and constant variety so that even the most fastidious cannot tire of it, good shelter, good clothing, good ventilation, exercise in the open air, add libidum, no overexertion in the way of work, instructive and amusing books of every kind, relaxation in the shape of cards, chess, dominoes, Alma, music and storytelling, how should anyone be ill? Every now and then I hear remarks expressive of perfect satisfaction with the life. Truly the whole secret lies in arranging things sensibly and especially in being careful about the food. A thing that I believe has a good effect upon us is this living together in the one saloon with everything in common. So far as I know, it is the first time that such a thing has been tried, but it is quite to be recommended. I have heard some of the men complain of sleeplessness. This is generally considered to be one inevitable consequence of the Arctic darkness. As far as I am personally concerned, I can say that I have felt nothing of it. I sleep soundly at night. I have no great belief in this sleeplessness, but then I do not take an after-dinner nap, which most of the others are addicted to, and if they sleep for several hours during the day, they can hardly expect to sleep all night as well. One must be awake part of one's time, as Sverdrup said. Sunday, December 31st. And now the last day of the year has come. It has been a long year and has brought much both of good and bad. It began with good by bringing little leave such a new strange happiness that at first I could hardly believe in it, but hard unspeakably hard was the parting that came later. No year has brought worse pain than that, and the time since has been one great longing. Wouldst thou be free from care and pain? Thou must love nothing here on earth. But longing, oh, there are worse things than that. All that is good and beautiful may flourish in its shelter. Everything would be over if we cease too long. But you fell off at the end, old year. You hardly carried us so far as you ought. Still, you might have done worse. You have not been so bad after all. Have not all hopes and calculations been justified and are we not drifting away just where I wished and hoped we should be? Only one thing has been amiss. I did not think the drift would have gone in quite so many zigzags. One could not have a more beautiful New Year's Eve. The aurora borealis is burning in wonderful colors and bands of light over the whole sky, but particularly in the north. Thousands of stars sparkle in the blue firmament among the northern lights. On every side, the eye stretches endless and silent into the night. The rhyme-covered rigging of the from stands out sharp and dark against the shining sky. The newspaper was read aloud only verses this time, among other poems, the following. To the New Year. And you, my boy, must give yourself trouble of your old father to be the double. Your lineage, honor, and fight hard to merit our praise for the habits we trust you inherit. On we must go if you want to please us to make us lie still is the way to tease us. In the old year we sailed not so badly, be it so still or you'll hear us groan sadly. When the time comes you must break up the ice for us. When the time comes you must win the great prize for us. We fervently hope, having reached our great goal, to eat next Christmas dinner beyond the North Pole. During the evening we were regaled with pineapple, figs, cakes, and other sweets, and about midnight Hansen brought in toddy and Nordahl cigars and cigarettes. At the moment of the passing of the year, all stood up and I had to make an apology for a speech, to the effect that the old year had been after all a good one and I hoped the new would not be worse. That I thank them for good comradeship and was sure that our life together this year would be as comfortable and pleasant as it had been during the last. Then they sang the songs that had been written for the farewell entertainments given to us at Christiania and at Bergen. Our mother weaped not, it was thou gave them the wish to wander, to leave our coasts and turn their prow towards night and perils yonder. Thou pointedest to the open sea the long cape was thy finger, the white sail wings they got from thee, thou canst not bid them linger. Yes, they are thine, O mother old, and proud thou dost embrace them, thou hearest of dangers manifold, but knowest thy sons can face them. And tears of joy thine eyes will reign the day the from come steering up fjord again to music strain and the roar of thousands cheering. E.N. Then I read aloud our last greeting, a telegram re-received at Trompsow from Molt Camau. Luck on the way, sun on the sea, sun on your minds, help from the winds. May the packed flows part and unclose where the ship goes, forward her progress be, even though the silent sea, then after her, frees up again. Strength enough, meet enough, hope enough, heat enough, the from will go sure enough then to the pole and so back to the dwellings of men. Luck on the way to thee and thy band, and welcome back to the Fatherland. After this we read some of Vignia's poems and then sang songs from the Framsha and others. It seems strange that we should have seen the New Year in already and that it will not begin at home for eight hours yet. It is almost four a.m. now. I had thought of sitting up till it was New Year in Norway too, but no, I will rather go to bed and sleep and dream that I am at home. End of file 11.