mild. Occasionally we had some bad weather, with drift-snow and sleet,

compelling us to stay indoors. However, the bad weather did not worry us much; on the contrary, we looked rather eagerly for changes in the weather, especially if they revived our hopes of a good drift westward, with a prospect of soon getting out of our prison. It must not be understood that we dreaded another winter in the ice before getting home. We had provisions enough, and everything else needful to get over some two or three polar winters, if necessary, and we had a ship in which we all placed the fullest confidence, in view of the many tests she had been put to. We were all sound and healthy, and had learned to stick ever closer to one another for better and for worse.

With regard to Nansen and Johansen, hardly any of us entertained serious fears; however dangerous their trip was, we were not afraid that they would succumb to their hardships on the way, and be prevented from reaching Franz Josef Land, and thence getting back to Norway before the year was out. On the contrary, we rejoiced at the thought that they would soon be home, telling our friends that we were getting on all right, and that there was every prospect of our return in the autumn of 1896. It is no wonder, however, that we were impatient, and that both body and soul suffered when the drift was slow, or when a protracted contrary wind and back-drift seemed to make it highly improbable that we should be able to reach home by the time we were expected.

Furthermore, the most important part of our mission was in a way accomplished. There was hardly any prospect that the drift would carry us much farther northward than we were now, and whatever could be done to explore the regions to the north would be done by Nansen and Johansen. It was our object, therefore, in compliance with the instructions from Dr. Nansen, to make for open water and home by the shortest way and in the safest manner, doing, however, everything within our power to carry home with us the best possible scientific results. These results, to judge from our experience up to this point, were almost a foregone conclusion--to wit, that the Polar Sea retained its character almost unchanged as we drifted westward, showing the same depths, the same conditions of ice and currents, and the same temperatures. No islands, rocks, shoals, and, still less, no mainland, appeared in the neighborhood of our frequently irregular course; wherever we looked there was the same monotonous and desolate plain of more or less rugged ice, holding us firmly, and carrying us willy-nilly along with it. Our scientific observations were continued uninterruptedly, as regularly and accurately as possible, and comprised, besides the usual meteorological observations, soundings, measurement of the thickness of the ice, longitude and latitude, taking the temperature of the sea at various depths, determining its salinity, collecting specimens of the fauna of the sea, magnetic and electrical observations, and so forth.