CHAPTER VII

LAND AT LAST

"Wednesday, July 24th. At last the marvel has come to pass--land, land! and after we had almost given up our belief in it! After nearly two years, we again see something rising above that never-ending white line on the horizon yonder--a white line which for millennium after millennium has stretched over this sea, and which for millenniums to come shall stretch in the same way. We are leaving it, and leaving no trace behind us, for the track of our little caravan across the endless plains has long ago disappeared. A new life is beginning for us; for the ice it is ever the same.

"It has long haunted our dreams, this land, and now it comes like a vision, like fairly-land. Drift-white, it arches above the horizon like distant clouds, which one is afraid will disappear every minute. The most wonderful thing is that we have seen this land all the time without knowing it. I examined it several times with the telescope from 'Longing Camp' in the belief that it might be snow-fields, but always came to the conclusion that it was only clouds, as I could never discover any dark point. Then, too, it seemed to change form, which, I suppose, must be attributed to the mist which always lay over it; but it always came back again at the same place with its remarkable regular curves. I now remember that dark crag we saw east of us at the camp, and which I took to be an iceberg. It must certainly have been a little islet [40] of some kind.

"The ice was worse and more broken than ever yesterday; it was, indeed, a labor to force one's way over pressure-ridges like veritable mountains, with valleys and clefts in between; but on we went in good spirits, and made some progress. At lanes where a crossing was difficult to find we did not hesitate to launch kayaks and sledges, and were soon over in this manner. Sometimes after a very bad bit we would come across some flat ice for a short distance, and over this we would go like wildfire, splashing through ponds and puddles. While I was on ahead at one time yesterday morning, Johansen went up on to a hummock to look at the ice, and remarked a curious black stripe over the horizon; but he supposed it to be only a cloud, he said, and I thought no more about the matter. When, some while later, I also ascended a hummock to look at the ice, I became aware of the same black stripe; it ran obliquely from the horizon up into what I supposed to be a white bank of clouds. The longer I looked at this bank and stripe the more unusual I thought them, until I was constrained to fetch the glass. No sooner had I fixed it on the black part than it struck me at once that this must be land, and that not far off. There was a large snow-field out of which black rocks projected. It was not long before Johansen had the glass to his eye, and convinced himself that we really had land before us. We both of us naturally became in the highest spirits. I then saw a similar white arching outline a little farther east; but it was for the most part covered with white mist, from which it could hardly be distinguished, and, moreover, was continually changing form. It soon, however, came out entirely, and was considerably larger and higher than the former, but there was not a black speck to be seen on it. So this was what land looked like, now that we had come to it! I had imagined it in many forms, with high peaks and glittering glaciers, but never like this. There was nothing kindly about this, but it was indeed no less welcome; and on the whole we could not expect it to be otherwise than snow-covered, with all the snow which falls here.

"So then we pitched the tent and had a feast suited to the occasion: lobscouse made of potatoes (for the last time but one; we had saved them long for this occasion), pemmican, dried bear's and seal's flesh, and bear tongues, chopped up together. After this was a second course, consisting of bread-crumbs fried in bear's grease, also vril-food and butter, and a piece of chocolate to wind up."

We thought this land so near that it could not possibly take long to reach it, certainly not longer than till next evening. Johansen was even certain that we should do it the same day, but nevertheless thirteen days were to elapse, occupied in the same monotonous drudgery over the drift-ice.

On July 25th I write: "When we stopped in the fog yesterday evening we had a feeling that we must have come well under land. This morning, when we turned out, the first thing Johansen did when he went to fetch some water for me to cook with was, of course, to climb up on the nearest hummock and look at the land. There it lay, considerably nearer than before, and he is quite certain that we shall reach it before night." I also discovered a new land to our west (S. 60° W. magnetic) that day; a regular, shield-like, arched outline, similar to the other land; and it was low above the horizon, and appeared to be a long way off. [41]

We went on our way as fast as we could across lanes and rough ice, but did not get far in the day, and the land did not seem to be much nearer. In reality there was no difference to be seen, although we tried to imagine that it was steadily growing higher. On Saturday, July 27th, I seem to have a suspicion that in point of fact we were drifting away from land, I write: "The wind began to blow from the S.S.W. (magnetic) just as we were getting off yesterday, and increased as the day went on. It was easy to perceive by the atmosphere that the wind was driving the ice off the land, and land-lanes formed particularly on the east side of it. When I was up on a hummock yesterday evening I observed a black stripe on the horizon under land; I examined it with the glass, and, as I had surmised, there was an ice-edge or glacier stretching far in a westerly direction; and there was plainly a broad lane in front of it, to judge by the dark bank of mist which lay there. It seems to me that land cannot be far off, and if the ice is tolerably passable we may reach it to-day. The wind continued last night, but it has quieted down now, and there is sunshine outside. We try by every means in our power to get a comfortable night's rest in our new bag of blankets. We have tried lying on the bare ice, on the 'ski,' and to-night on the bare ice again; but it must be confessed that it is hard and never will be very comfortable; a little chilly, too, when one is wet; but we shall appreciate a good warm bed all the more when we get it.

"Tuesday, July 30th. We make incredibly slow progress; but we are pushing our way nearer land all the same. [42] Every kind of hinderance seems to beset us: now I am suffering so much from my back (lumbago?) that yesterday it was only by exerting all my strength of will that I could drag myself along. In difficult places Johansen had to help me with my sledge. It began yesterday, and at the end of our march he had to go first and find the way. Yesterday I was much worse, and how I am to-day I do not know before I begin to walk; but I ought to be thankful that I can drag myself along at all, though it is with endless pain. We had to halt and camp on account of rain yesterday morning at three, after only having gone nine hours. The rain succeeded in making us wet before we had found a suitable place for the tent. Here we have been a whole day while it has been pouring down, and we have hardly become drier. There are puddles under us and the bag is soaked on the under-side. The wind has gone round to the west just now, and it has stopped raining, so we made some porridge for breakfast and think of going on again; but if it should begin to rain again we must stop, as it will not do to get wet through when we have no change of clothes. It is anything but pleasant as it is to lie with wet legs and feet that are like icicles, and not have a dry thread to put on. Full-grown Ross's gulls were seen singly four times to-day, and when Johansen was out to fetch water this morning he saw two. [43]

"Wednesday, July 31st. The ice is as disintegrated and impracticable as can well be conceived. The continual friction and packing of the floes against each other grind up the ice so that the water is full of brash and small pieces; to ferry over this in the kayaks is impossible, and the search is long before we eventually find a hazardous crossing. Sometimes we have to form one by pushing small floes together, or must ferry the sledges over on a little floe. We spend much time and labor on each single lane, and progress becomes slow in this way. My back still painful, Johansen had to go ahead yesterday also; and evening and morning he is obliged to take off my boots and socks, for I am unable to do it myself. He is touchingly unselfish, and takes care of me as if I were a child; everything he thinks can ease me he does quietly, without my knowing it. Poor fellow, he has to work doubly hard now, and does not know how this will end. I feel very much better to-day, however, and it is to be hoped shall soon be all right.

"Thursday, August 1st. Ice with more obstacles than here--is it to be found, I wonder? But we are working slowly on, and, that being the case, we ought, perhaps, to be satisfied. We have also had a change--a brilliantly fine day; but it seems to me the south wind we have had, which opened the lanes, has put us a good way farther off land again. We have also drifted a long distance to the east, and no longer see the most westerly land with the black rocks, which we remarked at first. It would seem as if the Ross's gulls keep to land here; we see them daily.

"One thing, however, I am rejoicing over; my back is almost well, so that I shall not delay our progress any more. I have some idea now what it would be like if one of us became seriously ill. Our fate would then be sealed, I think.

"Friday, August 2d. It seems as if everything conspired to delay us, and that we shall never get away from this drift-ice. My back is well again now; the ice was more passable yesterday than before, so that we nearly made a good day's march; but in return wind and current set us from shore, and we are farther away again. Against these two enemies all fighting is in vain, I am afraid. We have drifted far off to the southeast, have got the north point of the land about due west of us, and we are now in about 81° 36' N. My only hope now is that this drift eastward, away from land, may stop or alter its course, and thus bring us nearer land. It is unfortunate that the lanes are covered with young ice, which it would be disastrous to put the kayaks through. If this gets worse, things will look very bad. Meanwhile we have nothing to do but go on as fast as we can. If we are going to drift back into the ice again, then--then--

"Saturday, August 3d. Inconceivable toil. We never could go on with it were it not for the fact that we must. We have made wretchedly little progress, even if we have made any at all. We have had no food for the dogs the last few days except the ivory-gulls and fulmars we have been able to shoot, and that has been a couple a day. Yesterday the dogs only had a little bit of blubber each.

"Sunday, August 4th. These lanes are desperate work and tax one's strength. We often have to go several hundred yards on mere brash, or from block to block, dragging the sledges after us, and in constant fear of their capsizing into the water. Johansen was very nearly in yesterday, but, as always hitherto, he managed to save himself. The dogs fall in and get a bath continually.

"Monday, August 5th. We have never had worse ice than yesterday, but we managed to force our way on a little, nevertheless, and two happy incidents marked the day: the first was that Johansen was not eaten up by a bear, and the second, that we saw open water under the glacier edge ashore.

"We set off about 7 o'clock yesterday morning and got on to ice as bad it as could be. It was as if some giant had hurled down enormous blocks pell-mell, and had strewn wet snow in between them with water underneath; and into this we sank above our knees. There were also numbers of deep pools in between the blocks. It was like toiling over hill and dale, up and down over block after block and ridge after ridge, with deep clefts in between; not a clear space big enough to pitch a tent on even, and thus it went on the whole time. To put a coping-stone to our misery, there was such a mist that we could not see a hundred yards in front of us. After an exhausting march we at last reached a lane where we had to ferry over in the kayaks. After having cleared the side of the lane from young ice and brash, I drew my sledge to the end of the ice, and was holding it to prevent it slipping in, when I heard a scuffle behind me, and Johansen, who had just turned round to pull his sledge flush with mine, [44] cried, 'Take the gun!' I turned round and saw an enormous bear throwing itself on him, and Johansen on his back. I tried to seize my gun, which was in its case on the fore-deck, but at the same moment the kayak slipped into the water. My first thought was to throw myself into the water over the kayak and fire from there, but I recognized how risky it would be. I began to pull the kayak, with its heavy cargo, on to the high edge of the ice again as quickly as I could, and was on my knees pulling and tugging to get at my gun. I had no time to look round and see what was going on behind me, when I heard Johansen quietly say, 'You must look sharp if you want to be in time!'

"Look sharp? I should think so! At last I got hold of the butt-end, dragged the gun out, turned round in a sitting posture, and cocked the shot-barrel. The bear was standing not two yards off, ready to make an end to my dog, 'Kaifas.' There was no time to lose in cocking the other barrel, so I gave it a charge of shot behind the ear, and it fell down dead between us.

"The bear must have followed our track like a cat, and, covered by the ice-blocks, have slunk up while we were clearing the ice from the lane and had our backs to him. We could see by the trail how it had crept over a small ridge just behind us under cover of a mound by Johansen's kayak. While the latter, without suspecting anything or looking round, went back and stooped down to pick up the hauling-rope, he suddenly caught sight of an animal crouched up at the end of the kayak, but thought it was 'Suggen'; and before he had time to realize that it was so big he received a cuff on the ear which made him see fireworks, and then, as I mentioned before, over he went on his back. He tried to defend himself as best he could with his fists. With one hand he seized the throat of the animal, and held fast, clinching it with all his might. It was just as the bear was about to bite Johansen in the head that he uttered the memorable words, "Look sharp!" The bear kept glancing at me continually, speculating, no doubt, as to what I was going to do; but then caught sight of the dog and turned towards it. Johansen let go as quick as thought, and wriggled himself away, while the bear gave 'Suggen' a cuff which made him howl lustily, just as he does when we thrash him. Then 'Kaifas' got a slap on the nose. Meanwhile Johansen had struggled to his legs, and when I fired had got his gun, which was sticking out of the kayak hole. The only harm done was that the bear had scraped some grime off Johansen's right cheek, so that he has a white stripe on it, and had given him a slight wound in one hand; 'Kaifas' had also got a scratch on his nose.

"Hardly had the bear fallen before we saw two more, peeping over a hummock a little way off--cubs, who naturally wanted to see the result of the maternal chase. They were two large cubs. I thought it was not worth while to sacrifice a cartridge on them, but Johansen expressed his opinion that young bear's flesh was much more delicate in flavor than old. He would only shoot one, he said, and started off. However, the cubs took to their heels, although they came back a little while later, and we could hear them at a long distance growling after their mother.

"Johansen sent one of them a ball, but the range was too long, and he only wounded it. With some terrific growls it started off again, and Johansen after it; but he gave up the chase soon, as he saw it promised to be a long one. While we were cutting up the she-bear the cubs came back on the other side of the lane, and the whole time we were there we had them walking round us. When we had fed the dogs well, and had eaten some of the raw meat ourselves, and had furthermore stowed away in the kayaks the meat we had cut off the legs, we at last ferried over the lane and went on our way.

"The ice was not good; and, to make bad worse, we immediately came on some terrible lanes, full of nothing but tightly packed lumps of ice. In some places there were whole seas of it, and it was enough to make one despair. Among all this loose ice we came on an unusually thick old floe, with high mounds on it and pools in between. It was from one of these mounds that I observed through the glass the open water at the foot of the glacier, and now we cannot have far to go. But the ice looks very bad on ahead, and each piece when it is like this may take a long time to travel over.

"As we went along we heard the wounded bear lowing ceaselessly behind us; it filled the whole of this silent world of ice with its bitter plaint over the cruelty of man. It was miserable to hear it; and if we had had time we should undoubtedly have gone back and sacrificed a cartridge on it. We saw the cubs go off to the place where the mother was lying, and thought to ourselves that we had got rid of them, but heard them soon afterwards, and even when we had camped they were not far off.

"Wednesday, August 7th. At last we are under land; at last the drift-ice lies behind us, and before us is open water--open, it is to be hoped, to the end. Yesterday was the day. When we came out of the tent the evening of the day before yesterday we both thought we must be nearer the edge of the glacier than ever, and with fresh courage, and in the faint hope of reaching land that day, we started on our journey. Yet we dared not think our life on the drift-ice was so nearly at an end. After wandering about on it for five months and suffering so many disappointments, we were only too well prepared for a new defeat. We thought, however, that the ice looked more promising farther on, though before we had gone far we came to broad lanes full of slush and foul, uneven ice, with hills and dales, and deep snow and water, into which we sank up to our thighs. After a couple of lanes of this kind, matters improved a little, and we got on to some flat ice. After having gone over this for a while, it became apparent how much nearer we were to the edge of the glacier. It could not possibly be far off now. We eagerly harnessed ourselves to the sledges again, put on a spurt, and away we went through snow and water, over mounds and ridges. We went as hard as we could, and what did we care if we sank into water till far above our fur leggings, so that both they and our 'komager' filled and gurgled like a pump? What did it matter to us now, so long as we got on?

"We soon reached plains, and over them we went quicker and quicker. We waded through ponds where the spray flew up on all sides. Nearer and nearer we came, and by the dark water-sky before us, which continually rose higher, we could see how we were drawing near to open water. We did not even notice bears now. There seemed to be plenty about, tracks, both old and new, crossing and recrossing; one had even inspected the tent while we were asleep, and by the fresh trail we could see how it had come down wind in lee of us. We had no use for a bear now; we had food enough. We were soon able to see the open water under the wall of the glacier, and our steps lengthened even more. As I was striding along I thought of the march of the Ten Thousand through Asia, when Xenophon's soldiers, after a year's war against superior forces, at last saw the sea from a mountain and cried, 'Thalatta! thalatta!' Maybe this sea was just as welcome to us after our months in the endless white drift-ice.

"At last, at last, I stood by the edge of the ice. Before me lay the dark surface of the sea, with floating white floes; far away the glacier wall rose abruptly from the water; over the whole lay a sombre, foggy light. Joy welled up in our hearts at this sight, and we could not give it expression in words. Behind us lay all our troubles, before us the waterway home. I waved my hat to Johansen, who was a little way behind, and he waved his in answer and shouted 'Hurrah!' Such an event had to be celebrated in some way, and we did it by having a piece of chocolate each.

"While we were standing there looking at the water the large head of a seal came up, and then disappeared silently; but soon more appeared. It is very reassuring to know that we can procure food at any minute we like.

"Now came the rigging of the kayaks for the voyage. Of course, the better way would have been to paddle singly, but, with the long, big sledges on the deck, this was not easy, and leave them behind I dared not; we might have good use for them yet. For the time being, therefore, there was nothing else to be done but to lash the two kayaks together side by side in our usual manner, stiffen them out with snow-shoes under the straps, and place the sledges athwart them, one before and one behind.

"It was sad to think we could not take our two last dogs with us, but we should probably have no further use for them, and it would not have done to take them with us on the decks of our kayaks. We were sorry to part with them; we had become very fond of these two survivors. Faithful and enduring, they had followed us the whole journey through; and, now that better times had come, they must say farewell to life. Destroy them in the same way as the others we could not; we sacrificed a cartridge on each of them. I shot Johansen's, and he shot mine.

"So then we were ready to set off. It was a real pleasure to let the kayaks dance over the water and hear the little waves plashing against the sides. For two years we had not seen such a surface of water before us. We had not gone far before we found that the wind was so good that we ought to make use of it, and so we rigged up a sail on our fleet. We glided easily before the wind in towards the land we had so longed for all these many months. What a change, after having forced one's way inch by inch and foot by foot on ice! The mist had hidden the land from us for a while, but now it parted, and we saw the glacier rising straight in front of us. At the same moment the sun burst forth, and a more beautiful morning I can hardly remember. We were soon underneath the glacier, and had to lower our sail and paddle westward along the wall of ice, which was from 50 to 60 feet in height, and on which a landing was impossible. It seemed as if there must be little movement in this glacier; the water had eaten its way deep underneath it at the foot, and there was no noise of falling fragments or the cracking of crevasses to be heard, as there generally is with large glaciers. It was also quite even on the top, and no crevasses were to be seen. Up the entire height of the wall there was stratification, which was unusually marked. We soon discovered that a tidal current was running westward along the wall of the glacier with great rapidity, and took advantage of it to make good progress. To find a camping-ground, however, was not easy, and at last we were reduced to taking up our abode on a drifting floe. It was glorious, though, to go to rest in the certainty that we should not wake to drudgery in the drift-ice.

"When we turned out to-day we found that the ice had packed around us, and I do not know yet how we shall get out of it, though there is open water not far off to our west.

"Thursday, August 8th. After hauling our impedimenta over some floes we got into open water yesterday without much difficulty. When we had reached the edge of the water we made a paddle each from our snow-shoe-staffs, to which we bound blades made of broken-off snow-shoes. They were a great improvement on the somewhat clumsy paddles, with canvas blades lashed to bamboo sticks. I was very much inclined to chop off our sledges, so that they would only be half as long as before; by so doing we could carry them on the after-deck of the kayaks, and could thus each paddle alone, and our advance would be much quicker than by paddling the twin kayaks. However, I thought, perhaps, it was unadvisable. The water looked promising enough on ahead, but there was mist, and we could not see far; we knew nothing of the country or the coast we had come to, and might yet have good use for the sledges. We therefore set off in our double kayak, as before, with the sledges athwart the deck fore and aft.

"The mist soon rose a little. It was then a dead calm; the surface of the water lay like a great mirror before us, with bits of ice and an occasional floe drifting on it. It was a marvellously beautiful sight, and it was indeed glorious to sit there in our light vessels and glide over the surface without any exertion. Suddenly a seal rose in front of us, and over us flew continually ivory-gulls and fulmars and kittiwakes. Little auks we also saw, and some Ross's gulls, and a couple of terns. There was no want of animal life here, nor of food when we should require it.

"We found open water, broader and broader, as we paddled on our way beside the wall of ice; but it would not clear so that we could see something of our surroundings. The mist still hung obstinately over it.

"Our course at first lay west to north (magnetic); but the land always trended more and more to the west and southwest; the expanse of water grew greater, and soon it widened out to a large sea, stretching in a southwesterly direction. A breeze sprang up from the north-northeast, and there was considerable motion, which was not pleasant, as in our double craft the seas continually washed up between the two and wetted us. We put in towards evening and pitched the tent on the shore-ice, and just as we did so it began to rain, so that it was high time to be under a roof.

"Friday, August 9th. Yesterday morning we had again to drag the sledges with the kayaks over some ice which had drifted in front of our camping-ground, and during this operation I managed to fall into the water and get wet. It was with difficulty we finally got through and out into open water. After a while we again found our way closed, and were obliged to take to hauling over some floes, but after this we had good open water the whole day. It was a northeasterly wind which had set the ice towards the land, and it was lucky we had got so far, as behind us, to judge by the atmosphere, the sea was much blocked. The mist hung over the land so that we saw little of it. According as we advanced we were able to hold a more southerly course, and, the wind being nearly on the quarter, we set sail about 1 o'clock, and continued sailing all day till we stopped yesterday evening. Our sail, however, was interrupted once when it was necessary to paddle round an ice-point north of where we are now; the contrary current was so strong that it was as much as we could do to make way against it, and it was only after considerable exertion that we succeeded in doubling the point. We have seen little of the land we are skirting up to this, on account of the mist; but as far as I can make out it consists of islands. First there was a large island covered with an ice-sheet; then west of it a smaller one, on which are the two crags of rock which first made us aware of the vicinity of land; next came a long fjord or sound, with massive shore-ice in it; and then a small, low headland, or rather an island, south of which we are now encamped. This shore-ice lying along the land is very remarkable. It is unusually massive and uneven; it seems to be composed of huge blocks welded together, which in a great measure, at any rate, must proceed from the ice-sheet. There has also, perhaps, been violent pressure against the land, which has heaved the sea-ice up together with pieces of ice from the calving of the glacier, and the whole has frozen together into a conglomerate mass. A medium-sized iceberg lay off the headland north of us, where the current was so strong. Where we are now lying, however, there is flat fjord-ice between the low island here and a larger one farther south.

"This land grows more of a problem, and I am more than ever at a loss to know where we are. It is very remarkable to me that the coast continually trends to the south instead of to the west. I could explain it all best by supposing ourselves to be on the west coast of the archipelago of Franz Josef Land, were it not that the variation, I think, is too great, and also for the number of Ross's gulls there still are. Not one has with certainty been seen in Spitzbergen, and if my supposition is right, this should not be far off. Yesterday we saw a number of them again; they are quite as common here as the other species of gull.

"Saturday, August 10th. We went up on to the little islet we had camped by. It was covered by a glacier, which curved over it in the shape of a shield; there were slopes to all sides; but so slight was the gradient that our snow-shoes would not even run of themselves on the crust of snow. From the ridge we had a fair view, and, as the mist lifted just then, we saw the land about us tolerably well. We now perceived plainly that what we had been skirting along was only islands. The first one was the biggest. The other land, with the two rocky crags, had, as we could see, a strip of bare land along the shore on the northwest side. Was it there, perhaps, the Ross's gulls congregated and had their breeding-grounds? The island to our south also looked large; it appeared to be entirely covered by a glacier. [45] Between the islands, and as far as we could perceive southeast and east, the sea was covered by perfectly flat fjord-ice, but no land was to be discerned in that direction. There were no icebergs here, though we saw some later in the day on the south side of the island lying to the south of us.

"The glacier covering the little island on which we stood joined the fjord-ice almost imperceptibly; only a few small fissures along the shore indicated where it probably began. There could not be any great rise and fall in the ice here, consequent on the tide, as the fissures would then, as a matter of course, have been considerably larger. This seemed remarkable, as the tidal current ran swift as a river here. On the west side of the island there lay in front of the glacier a rampart of ice and snow, which was probably formed of pieces of glacier-ice and sea-ice welded together. It had the same character as the massive shore-ice which we had seen previously running along the land. This rampart went over imperceptibly with an even slope into the glacier within it.

"About three in the afternoon we finally set off in open water and sailed till eight or so in the evening; the water was then closed, and we were compelled to haul the fleet over flat ice to open water on the other side. But here, too, our progress seemed blocked, and as the current was against us we pitched the tent."

On August 10th we were "compelled partly to haul our sledges over the ice, partly to row in open water in a southwesterly direction. When we reached navigable waters again, we passed a flock of walruses lying on a floe. It was a pleasure to see so much food collected at one spot, but we did not take any notice of them, as, for the time being, we have meat and blubber enough. After dinner we managed, in the mist, to wander down a long bay into the shore-ice, where there was no outlet; we had to turn back, and this delayed us considerably. We now kept a more westerly course, following the often massive and uneven edge of the ice; but the current was dead against us, and, in addition, young ice had been forming all day as we rowed along; the weather had been cold and still, with falling snow, and this began to be so thick that we could not make way against it any longer. We therefore went ashore on the ice, and hauled until ten in the evening.

"Bear-tracks, old and new, in all directions--both the single ones of old bachelors and those of she-bears with cubs. It looks as if they had had a general rendezvous, or as if a flock of them had roamed backward and forward. I have never seen so many bear-tracks in one place in my life.

"We have certainly done 14 or 25 miles to-day; but still I think our progress is too slow if we are to reach Spitzbergen this year, and I am always wondering if we ought not to cut the ends off our sledges, so that each can paddle his own kayak. This young ice, however, which grows steadily worse, and the eleven degrees below freezing we now have, make me hold my hand. Perhaps winter is upon us, and then the sledges may be very necessary.

"It is a curious sensation to paddle in the mist, as we are doing, without being able to see a mile in front of us. The land we found we have left behind us. We are always in hopes of clear weather, in order to see where the land lies in front of us--for land there must be. This flat, unbroken ice must be attached to land of some kind; but clear weather we are not to have, it appears. Mist without ceasing; we must push on as it is."

After having hauled some distance farther over the ice we came to open water again the following day (August 11th) and paddled for four or five hours. While I was on a hummock inspecting the waters ahead, a huge monster of a walrus came up quite near us. It lay puffing and glaring at us on the surface of the water, but we took no notice of it, got into our kayaks, and went on. Suddenly it came up again by the side of us, raised itself high out of the water, snorted so that the air shook, and threatened to thrust its tusks into our frail craft. We seized our guns, but at the same moment it disappeared, and came up immediately afterwards on the other side, by Johansen's kayak, where it repeated the same manoeuvre. I said to him that if the animal showed signs of attacking us we must spend a cartridge on it. It came up several times and disappeared again; we could see it down in the water, passing rapidly on its side under our vessels, and, afraid lest it should make a hole in the bottom with its tusks, we thrust our paddles down into the water and frightened it away; but suddenly it came up again right by Johansen's kayak, and more savage than ever. He sent it a charge straight in the eyes, it uttered a terrific bellow, rolled over, and disappeared, leaving a trail of blood on the water behind it. We paddled on as hard as we could, knowing that the shot might have dangerous consequences, but we were relieved when we heard the walrus come up far behind us at the place where it had disappeared.

We had paddled quietly on, and had long forgotten all about the walrus, when I suddenly saw Johansen jump into the air and felt his kayak receive a violent shock. I had no idea what it was, and looked round to see if some block of floating ice had capsized and struck the bottom of his kayak; but suddenly I saw another walrus rise up in the water beside us. I seized my gun, and as the animal would not turn its head so that I could aim at a spot behind the ear, where it is more easily wounded, I was constrained to put a ball in the middle of its forehead; there was no time to be lost. Happily this was enough, and it lay there dead and floating on the water. With great difficulty we managed to make a hole in the thick skin, and after cutting ourselves some strips of blubber and meat from the back we went on our way again.

At seven in the evening the tidal current turned and the channel closed. There was no more water to be found. Instead of taking to hauling over the ice, we determined to wait for the opening of the channel when the tide should turn next day, and meanwhile to cut off the ends of our sledges, as I had so long been thinking of doing, and make ourselves some good double paddles, so that we could put on greater pace, and, in our single kayaks, make the most of the channel during the time it was open. While we were occupied in doing this the mist cleared off at last, and there lay land stretched out in front of us, extending a long way south and west from S.E. right up to N.N.W. It appeared to be a chain of islands with sounds between them. They were chiefly covered with glaciers, only here and there were perpendicular black mountain-walls to be seen. It was a sight to make one rejoice to see so much land at one time. But where were we? This seemed a more difficult question to answer than ever. Could we, after all, have arrived at the east side of Franz Josef Land? It seemed very reasonable to suppose this to be the case. But then we must be very far east, and must expect a long voyage before we could reach Cape Fligely, on Crown Prince Rudolf Land. Meanwhile we worked hard to get the sledges ready; but as the mist gradually lifted and it became clearer and clearer, we could not help continually leaving them, to climb up on to the hummock beside us to look at the country, and speculate on this insoluble problem. We did not get to bed till seven in the morning of August 12th.

"Tuesday, August 13th. After having slept a few hours, we turned out of the bag again, for the current had turned, and there was a wide channel. In our single kayaks, we made good headway, but after going about five miles the channel closed, and we had to clamber on to the ice. We thought it advisable to wait until the tidal current turned, and see if there were not a channel running farther. If not, we must lash proper grips of wood to our curtailed sledges, and commence hauling towards a sound running through the land, which I see about W.N.W. (true), and which, according to Payer's chart, I take to be Rawlinson's Sound."

But the crack did not open, and when it came to the point we had to continue on our way hauling.

"Wednesday, August 14th. We dragged our sledges and loads over a number of floes and ferried across lanes, arriving finally at a lane which ran westward, in which we could paddle; but it soon packed together again, and we were stopped. The ivory-gulls are very bold, and last night stole a piece of blubber lying close by the tent wall."

The following day we had to make our way as well as we could by paddling short distances in the lanes or hauling our loads over floes smaller or larger, as the case might be. The current, which was running like a mill-race, ground them together in its career. Our progress with our short, stumpy sledges was nothing very great, and of water suitable for paddling in we found less and less. We stopped several times and waited for the ice to open at the turn of the tide, but it did not do so, and on the morning of August 15th we gave it up, turned inward, and took to the shore-ice for good. We set our course westward towards the sound we had seen for several days now, and had struggled so to reach. The surface of the ice was tolerably even and we got over the ground well. On the way we passed a frozen-in iceberg, which was the highest we saw in these parts--some 50 to 60 feet, I should say. [46] I wished to go up it to get a better view of our environment, but it was too steep, and we did not get higher than a third part up the side.

"In the evening we at last reached the islands we had been steering for for the last few days, and for the first time for two years had bare land under foot. The delight of the feeling of being able to jump from block to block of granite [47] is indescribable, and the delight was not lessened when in a little sheltered corner among the stones we found moss and flowers, beautiful poppies (Papaver nudicaule) Saxifraga nivalis, and a Stellaria (sp.?). It goes without saying that the Norwegian flag had to wave over this our first bare land, and a banquet was prepared. Our petroleum, meanwhile, had given out several days previously, and we had to contrive another lamp in which train-oil could be used. The smoking hot lobscouse, made of pemmican and the last of our potatoes, was delicious, and we sat inside the tent and kicked the bare grit under us to our heart's content.

"Where we are is becoming more and more incomprehensible. There appears to be a broad sound west of us, but what is it? The island [48] we are now on, and where we have slept splendidly (this is written on the morning of August 16th) on dry land, with no melting of the ice in puddles underneath us, is a long moraine-like ridge running about north and south (magnetic), and consists almost exclusively of small and large--generally very large--blocks of stone, with, I should say, occasional stationary crags. The blocks are in a measure rounded off, but I have found no striation on them. The whole island barely rises above the snow-field in which it lies, and which slopes in a gradual decline down to the surrounding ice. On our west there is a bare island, somewhat higher, which we have seen for several days. Along the shore there is a decided strand-line (terrace). North of us are two small islets and a small rock or skerry.

"As I mentioned before (August 13th) I had at first supposed the sound on our west to be Rawlinson's Sound, but this now appeared impossible, as there was nothing to be seen of Dove Glacier, by which it is bounded on one side. If this was now our position, we must have traversed the glacier and Wilczek Land without noticing any trace of either; for we had travelled westward a good half degree south of Cape Buda-Pesth. The possibility that we could be in this region we consequently now held to be finally excluded. We must have come to a new land in the western part of Franz Josef Land or Archipelago, and so far west that we had seen nothing of the countries discovered by Payer. But so far west that we had not even seen anything of Oscar's Land, which ought to be situated in 82° N. and 52° E.? This was indeed incomprehensible; but was there any other explanation?

"Saturday, August 17th. Yesterday was a good day. We are in open water on the west coast of Franz Josef Land, as far as I can make out, and may again hope to get home this year. About noon yesterday we walked across the ice from our moraine-islet to the higher island west of us. As I was ready before Johansen, I went on first to examine the island a little. As he was following me he caught sight of a bear on the level ice to leeward. It came jogging up against the wind straight towards him. He had his gun ready, but when a little nearer the bear stopped, reconsidered the situation, suddenly turned tail, and was soon out of sight.

"This island [49] we came to seemed to me to be one of the most lovely spots on the face of the earth. A beautiful flat beach, an old strand-line with shells strewn about, a narrow belt of clear water along the shore, where snails and sea-urchins (Echinus) were visible at the bottom and amphipoda were swimming about. In the cliffs overhead were hundreds of screaming little auks, and beside us the snow-buntings fluttered from stone to stone with their cheerful twitter. Suddenly the sun burst forth through the light fleecy clouds, and the day seemed to be all sunshine. Here were life and bare land; we were no longer on the eternal drift-ice! At the bottom of the sea just beyond the beach I could see whole forests of seaweed (Laminaria and Fucus). Under the cliffs here and there were drifts of beautiful rose-colored snow. [50]

"On the north side of the island we found the breeding-place of numbers of black-backed gulls; they were sitting with their young in ledges of the cliffs. Of course we had to climb up and secure a photograph of this unusual scene of family life, and as we stood there high up on the cliff's side we could see the drift-ice whence we had come. It lay beneath us like a white plain, and disappeared far away on the horizon. Beyond this it was we had journeyed, and farther away still the Fram and our comrades were drifting yet.

"I had thought of going to the top of this island to get a better view, and perhaps come nearer solving the problem of our whereabouts. But when we were on the west side of it the mist came back and settled on the top; we had to content ourselves with only going a little way up the slope to look at our future course westward. Some way out we saw open water; it looked like the sea itself, but before one could get to it there was a good deal of ice. We came down again and started off. Along the land there was a channel running some distance farther, and we tried it, but it was covered everywhere with a thin layer of new ice, which we did not dare to break through in our kayaks, and risk cutting a hole in them; so, finally, a little way farther south we put in to drag up the kayaks and take to the ice again. While we were doing this one huge bearded seal after another stuck its head up by the side of the ice and gazed wonderingly at us with its great eyes; then, with a violent header, and splashing the water in all directions, it would disappear, to come up again soon afterwards on the other side. They kept playing around us, blowing, diving, reappearing, and throwing themselves over so that the water foamed round them. It would have been easy enough to capture one had we required it.

"At last, after a good deal of exertion, we stood at the margin of the ice; the blue expanse of water lay before us as far as the eye could reach, and we thought that for the future we had to do with it alone. To the north [51] there was land, the steep, black, basalt cliffs of which fell perpendicularly into the sea. We saw headland after headland standing out northward, and farthest off of all we could descry a bluish glacier. The interior was everywhere covered with an ice-sheet. Below the clouds, and over the land, was a strip of ruddy night sky, which was reflected in the melancholy, rocking sea.

"So we paddled on along the side of the glacier which covered the whole country south of us. We became more and more excited as we approached the headland to the west. Would the coast trend south here, and was there no more land westward? It was this we expected to decide our fate--decide whether we should reach home that year or be compelled to winter somewhere on land. Nearer and nearer we came to it along the edge of the perpendicular wall of ice. At last we reached the headland, and our hearts bounded with joy to see so much water--only water--westward, and the coast trending southwest. We also saw a bare mountain projecting from the ice-sheet a little way farther on; it was a curious high ridge, as sharp as a knife-blade. It was as steep and sharp as anything I have seen; it was all of dark, columnar basalt, and so jagged and peaked that it looked like a comb. In the middle of the mountain there was a gap or couloir, and there we crept up to inspect the sea-way southward. The wall of rock was anything but broad there, and fell away on the south side in a perpendicular drop of several hundred feet. A cutting wind was blowing in the couloir. While we were lying there, I suddenly heard a noise behind me, and on looking around I saw two foxes fighting over a little auk which they had just caught. They clawed and tugged and bit as hard as they could on the very edge of the chasm; then they suddenly caught sight of us, not twenty feet away from them. They stopped fighting, looked up wonderingly, and began to run around and peep at us, first from one side, then from the other. Over us myriads of little auks flew backward and forward, screaming shrilly from the ledges in the mountain-side. So far as we could make out, there appeared to be open sea along the land to the westward. The wind was favorable, and although we were tired we decided to take advantage of the opportunity, have something to eat, rig up mast and sail on our canoes, and get afloat. We sailed till the morning, when the wind went down, and then we landed on the shore-ice again and camped. [52]

"I am as happy as a child in the thought that we are now at last really on the west coast of Franz Josef Land, with open water before us, and independent of ice and currents.

"Wednesday, August 24th. The vicissitudes of this life will never come to an end. When I wrote last I was full of hope and courage; and here we are stopped by stress of weather for four days and three nights, with the ice packed as tight as it can be against the coast. We see nothing but piled-up ridges, hummocks, and broken ice in all directions. Courage is still here, but hope--the hope of soon being home--that was relinquished a long time ago, and before us lies the certainty of a long, dark winter in these surroundings.

"It was at midnight between the 17th and 18th that we set off from our last camping-ground in splendid weather. Though it was cloudy and the sun invisible, there was along the horizon in the north the most glorious ruddy glow with golden sun-tipped clouds, and the sea lay shining and dreamy in the distance: a marvellous night.... On the surface of the sea, smooth as a mirror, without a block of ice as far as the eye could reach, glided the kayaks, the water purling off the paddles at every silent stroke. It was like being in a gondola on the Canale Grande. But there was something almost uncanny about all this stillness, and the barometer had gone down rapidly. Meanwhile, we sped towards the headland in the south-southwest, which I thought was about 12 miles off. [53] After some hours we espied ice ahead, but both of us thought that it was only a loose chain of pieces drifting with the current, and we paddled confidently on. But as we gradually drew nearer we saw that the ice was fairly compact, and extended a greater and greater distance; though from the low kayaks it was not easy to see the exact extent of the pack. We accordingly disembarked and climbed up on a hummock to find out our best route. The sight which met us was anything but encouraging. Off the headland we were steering for were a number of islets and rocks, extending some distance out to sea; it was they that were locking the ice, which lay in every direction, between them and outside them. Near us it was slack, but farther off it looked much worse, so that further advance by sea was altogether out of the question. Our only expedient was to take to the edge of the shore-ice, and hope for the chance that a lane might run along it some way farther on. On the way in we passed a seal lying on a floe, and as our larder was beginning to grow empty, I tried to get a shot at it, but it dived into the water before we came within range.

"As we were paddling along through some small bits of ice my kayak suddenly received a violent shock from underneath. I looked round in amazement, as I had not noticed any large piece of ice hereabouts. There was nothing of the kind to be seen either, but worse enemies were about. No sooner had I glanced down than I saw a huge walrus cleaving through the water astern, and it suddenly came up, raised itself and stood on end just before Johansen, who was following in my wake. Afraid lest the animal should have its tusks through the deck of his craft the next minute, he backed as hard as he could and felt for his gun, which he had down in the kayak. I was not long either in pulling my gun out of its cover. The animal crashed snorting into the water again, however, dived under Johansen's kayak, and came up just behind him. Johansen, thinking he had had enough of such a neighbor, scrambled incontinently on to the floe nearest him. After having waited awhile, with my gun ready for the walrus to come up close by me, I followed his example. I very nearly came in for the cold bath which the walrus had omitted to give me, for the edge of the ice gave way just as I set my foot on it, and the kayak drifted off with me standing upright in it, and trying to balance it as best I could, in order not to capsize. If the walrus had reappeared at that moment I should certainly have received it in its own element. Finally, I succeeded in getting up on to the ice, and for a long time afterwards the walrus swam round and round our floe, where we made the best of the situation by having dinner. Sometimes it was near Johansen's kayak, sometimes near mine. We could see how it darted about in the water under the kayaks, and it had evidently the greatest desire to attack us again. We thought of giving it a ball to get rid of it, but had no great wish to part with a cartridge, and, besides, it only showed us its nose and forehead, which are not exactly the most vital spots to aim at, when one's object is to kill with one shot. It was a great ox-walrus. There is something remarkably fantastic and prehistoric about these monsters. I could not help thinking of a merman, or something of the kind, as it lay there just under the surface of the water, blowing and snorting for quite a long while at a time, and glaring at us with its round glassy eyes. After having continued in this way for some time, it disappeared just as tracklessly as it had come; and as we had finished our dinner we were able to go on our way again, glad, a second time, not to have been upset or destroyed by its tusks. The most curious thing about it was that it came so entirely without warning--suddenly rising up from the deep. Johansen had certainly heard a great splash behind him some time before, which he took to be a seal, but perhaps it may have been the walrus.

"The lane along the shore-ice gave us little satisfaction, as it was completely covered with young ice and we could make no way. In addition to this, a wind from the S.S.W. sprang up, which drove the ice on to us, so there was nothing for it but to put in to the edge of the ice and wait until it should slacken again. We spread out the bag, folded the tent over us, and prepared for rest in the hope of soon being able to go on. But this was not to be; the wind freshened, the ice packed tighter and tighter, there was soon no open water to be seen in any direction, and even the open sea, whence we had come, disappeared; all our hopes of getting home that year sank at one blow. After a while we realized that there was nothing to be done but to drag our loads farther in on to the shore-ice and camp. To try and haul the canoes farther over this pack, which was worse than any ice we had come across since we began our voyage, we thought was useless. We should get very little distance in the day, and it might cost us dear with the kayaks on the short sledges, among all these ridges and hummocks; and so we lay there day and night waiting for the wind to go down or to change. But it blew from the same quarter the whole time, and matters were not improved by a heavy fall of snow which made the ice absolutely impracticable.

"Our situation was not an attractive one; in front of us massive broken sea-ice close by land, and the gods alone know if it will open again this year; a good way behind us land [54] which looked anything but inviting to spend the winter on; around us impassable ice, and our provender very much on the decline. The south coast of the country and Eira Harbor now appeared to our imagination a veritable land of Canaan, and we thought that if only we were there all our troubles would be over. We hoped to be able to find Leigh Smith's hut there, or, at any rate, some remains of it, so that we should have something to live in; and we also hoped that where there no doubt was much open water it would be easy to find game. We regretted not having shot some seals while they were numerous; on the night when we left our last camping-place there were plenty of them about. As Johansen was standing on the edge of the ice doing something to his kayak, a seal came up just in front of him. He thought it was of a kind he had not seen before, and shouted to me. But at the same moment up came one black poll after another quiet and silent, from ten to twenty in number, all gazing at him with their great eyes. He was quite nonplussed, thought there was something uncanny about it, and then they disappeared just as noiselessly as they had come.

"I consoled him by telling him they really were of a kind we had not seen before on our journey; they were young harp, or saddleback seal (Phoca groenlandica). We saw several schools of them again later in the day.

"Meanwhile we killed time as best we could--chiefly by sleeping. On the early morning of the 21st, just as I lay thinking what would become of us if the ice should not slacken and we had no opportunity of adding to our larder--the chances, I thought, did not seem very promising--I heard something pawing and moving outside. It might, as usual, be the packing of the ice, but still I thought it was more like something on four legs. I jumped up, saying to Johansen that it must be a bear, and then I suddenly heard it sniffing by the tent wall. I peeped out through some holes in one side of it and saw nothing; then I went across to a big hole on the other side of the tent, and there I saw an enormous bear just outside. It caught sight of me, too, at the same moment and slunk away, but then stopped again and looked at the tent. I snatched my gun down from the tent-pole, stuck it through the hole, and sent the bear a ball in the middle of the chest. It fell forward; but raised itself again and struggled off, so I had to give it the contents of the other barrel in the side. It still staggered on, but fell down between some hummocks a little way off. An unusually large he-bear, and for the time all our troubles for food were ended. The wind, however, continued steadily from the same quarter. As there was not much shelter where we were encamped, and, furthermore, as we were uncomfortably near the ridge where the ice was continually packing, we removed and took up our abode farther in on the shore-ice, where we are still lying. Last night there was a bear about again, but not quite so near the tent.

"We went on an excursion inland [55] yesterday to see what our prospects might be if we should be forced to spend a winter here. I had hoped to find flatter ice farther in, but instead it grew worse and worse the nearer we went to land, and right in by the headland it was towering up, and almost impassable. The ice was piled against the very wall of the glacier. We went up on the glacier and looked at the sound to the north of the headland. A little way in the ice appeared to be flatter, more like fjord-ice, but nowhere could we see lanes where there might be a chance of capturing seal. There was no place for a hut either about here; while, on the other hand, we found on the south side of the headland quite a smiling spot where the ground was fairly level, and where there was some herbage, and an abundance of moss and stones for building purposes. But outside it, again, the ice towered up on the shore in chaotic confusion on all sides. It was a little more level in the direction of the fjord or sound which ran far inland to the south, and there it soon turned to flat fjord-ice; but there were no lanes there either where we could hope to capture seal. There did not seem much prospect of game, but we comforted ourselves with the reflection that there were tracks of bears in every direction, and bears would, in case of necessity, be our one resource for both food and clothes. In the cliffs above us crowds of little auks had their nests, as on all such places that we have passed by. We also saw a fox. The rock formation was a coarse-grained basalt; but by the side of the glacier we discovered a mound of loose, half-crumbled argillaceous schist, in which, however, we did not find any fossils. Some blocks which we thought very much like granite were also strewn about. [56] Everywhere along the beach the glaciers were covered with red snow, which had a very beautiful effect in the sunshine.

"We were both agreed that it might be possible to winter here, but hoped it was the first and last time we should set foot on the spot. The way to it, too, was so bad that we hardly knew how we should get the sledges and kayaks there.

"To-day, at last, the change we have longed and waited for so long has come. Last night the southwest wind quieted down; the barometer, which I have been tapping daily in vain, has at last begun to rise a little, and the wind has gone round to the opposite quarter. The question now is whether, if it keep there, it will be able to drive the ice out again."

Here comes a great gap in my diary, and not till far on in the winter (Friday, December 6th) do I write: "I must at last try and patch the hole in my diary. There has been so much to see about that I have got no writing done; that excuse, however, is no longer available, as we sleep nearly the whole twenty-four hours."

After having written my journal for August 24th I went out to look for a better and more sheltered place, as the wind had changed, and now blew straight into the tent. I hoped, too, that this land-wind might open up the ice, and I therefore first set off to see whether any sign of slackening was to be discovered at the edge of the shore-ice; but the floes lay packed together as solidly as ever. I found, however, a capital place for pitching the tent, and we were busy moving thither when we suddenly discovered that the ice had split off to the landward, and already there was a broad channel. We certainly wanted the ice to open up, but not on our landward side; and now it was a question of getting across on to the shore-ice again at any price, so as not to drift out to sea with the pack. But the wind had risen to a stiff breeze, and it seemed more than doubtful whether we could manage to pull up against it, even for so short a distance as across the channel. This was rapidly growing broader and broader. We had, however, to make an attempt, and, therefore, set off along the edge towards a spot farther east, which we thought would give us a little more shelter for launching our kayaks. On arriving, however, we found that it would be no easy matter to launch them here either without getting them filled with water. It blew so that the spoondrift was driven over the sea, and the spray was dashed far in over the ice. There was little else to be done but to pitch our tent and wait for better times. We were now more than ever in need of shelter to keep the tent from being torn by the wind, but, search and tramp up and down as we might, we could find no permanent resting-place, and at last had to content ourselves with the scant shelter of a little elevation which we thought would do. We had not lain long before the gusts of wind made such onslaughts on the tent that we found it advisable to take it down, to avoid having it torn to pieces. We could now sleep securely in our bags beneath the prostrate tent, and let the wind rage above us. After a time I awoke, and noticed that the wind had subsided so much that we could once more raise our tent, and I crept out to look at the weather. I was less pleasantly surprised on discovering that we were already far out to sea; we must have drifted eight or ten miles from land, and between it and us lay open sea. The land now lay quite low, far off on the horizon. In the meantime, however, the weather had considerably improved, and we once more set out along the edge of the ice to try to get our kayaks launched. But it was no easy matter. It was still blowing hard, and the sea ran high. In addition to this, there were a number of loose floes beyond, and these were in constant motion, so that we had to be on the alert to prevent the kayaks from being crushed between them. After some futile attempts we at length got afloat, but only to discover that the wind and the waves were too strong; we should scarcely be able to make any progress against them. Our only resource, therefore, was to sail, if this were practicable. We went alongside an ice promontory, lashed the kayaks together, raised the mast, and again put to sea. We soon had our single sail hoisted, and to our unspeakable satisfaction we now found that we got along capitally. At last we should be able to bid farewell to the ice, where we had been compelled to abandon our hope of reaching home that year. We now continued sailing hour after hour, and made good progress; but then the wind dropped too much for our single sail, and I ventured to set the whole double sail. Hardly had we done so, when the wind again sprang up, and we dashed foaming through the water. This soon, however, became a little too much; the sea washed over the lee kayak, the mast bent dangerously, and the situation did not look very pleasant; there was nothing for it but to lower the sail again as quickly as possible. The single sail was again hoisted, and we were cured for some time of wishing to try anything more.

We sailed steadily and well the whole day, and now at last had to pass the difficult cape; but it was evening before we left it behind, and now the wind dropped so much that the whole double sail had to be hoisted again, and even then progress was slow. We kept on, however, during the night, along the shore, determined to make as much use of the wind as possible. We passed a low promontory covered by a gently sloping glacier; [57] around it lay a number of islands, which must, we thought, have held the ice fast. A little farther on we came under some high basaltic cliffs, and here the wind dropped completely. As it was also hazy, and we could discern land and islands both to right and left of us, so that we did not know in what direction to steer, we put in here, drew the kayaks up on shore, pitched the tent, and cooked ourselves a good meal of warm food, which we relished greatly, from the consciousness of having done a good day's work. Above our heads, all up the face of the cliff, the little auks kept up a continual hubbub, faithfully supported by the ivory-gulls, kittiwakes, burgomasters, and skuas. We slept none the worse for that, however. This was a beautiful mountain. It consisted of the finest columnar basalt one could wish to see, with its buttresses and niches up the face of the cliff, and its countless points and spires along every crest, reminding one of Milan Cathedral. From top to bottom it was only column upon column; at the base they were all lost in the talus.

When we turned out the following morning, the weather had so far cleared that we could better see the way we ought to take. It appeared as if a deep fjord or sound ran in eastward in front of us; and our way distinctly lay round a promontory which we had to the S.S.W. on the other side of the fjord. In that direction the water appeared to be open, while within the fjord lay solid ice, and out to sea drift-ice lay everywhere. Through the misty atmosphere we could also distinguish several islands. [58] Here, too, as we usually found in the morning, a great quantity of ice had drifted in in the course of the night--great, flat, and thin floes, which had settled themselves in front of us--and it looked as if we should have hard work to get out into open water. Things went a little better than we expected, however, and we got through before it closed in entirely. In front of us now lay open water right past the promontory far ahead; the weather was good, and everything seemed to promise a successful day. As it began to blow a little from the fjord, and we hoped it might become a sailing-wind, we put in beside a little rocky island, which looked just like a great stone [59] sticking up out of the sea, and there rigged up mast and sail. But the sailing-wind came to nothing, and we were soon obliged to unrig and take to paddling. We had not paddled far when the wind went round to the opposite quarter, the southwest. It increased rapidly, and soon the sea ran high, the sky became overcast in the south, and it looked as if the weather might become stormy. We were still several miles from the land on the other side of the fjord, and we might have many hours of hard paddling before we gained it. This land, too, looked far from inviting, as it lay there, entirely covered with glacier from the summit right to the shore; only in one place did a little rock emerge. To leeward we had the margin of the shore-ice, low, and affording no protection. The waves broke right upon it, and it would not be a good place to seek refuge in, should such a proceeding become necessary; it would be best to get in under land and see how the weather would turn out. We did not like the prospect of once more being enclosed in the drift-ice; we had had enough of that by this time, so we made for some land which lay a little way behind us, and looked very inviting. Should matters turn out badly, a good place for wintering in might be found there.

Scarcely had I set foot on land when I saw a bear a little way up the shore and drew up our kayaks to go and shoot it. In the meantime it came shambling along the shore towards us, so we lay down quietly behind the kayaks and waited. When close up to us it caught sight of our footprints in the snow, and while it was sniffing at them Johansen sent a bullet behind its shoulder. The bear roared and tried to run, but the bullet had gone through the spine, and the hind part of its body was paralyzed and refused to perform its functions. In perplexity the bear sat down, and bit and tore its hind-paws until the blood flowed; it was as if it were chastising them to make them do their duty. Then it tried again to move away, but with the same result; the hind part of its body was no longer amenable to discipline, and dragged behind, so that it could only shuffle along on its fore-legs, going round in a ring. A ball through the skull put an end to its sufferings.

When we had skinned it we made an excursion inland to inspect our new domain, and were now not a little surprised to see two walruses lying quietly on the ice close to the spot where I had first caught sight of the bear. This seemed to me to show how little heed walruses pay to bears, who will never attack them if they can help it. I had more decisive proofs of this subsequently. In the sea beyond we also saw a walrus, which kept putting up its head and breathing so hard that it could be heard a long way off. A little later I saw him approach the edge of the ice and disappear, only to appear again in the tidal channel close to the shore, a good way from the edge of the ice. He struck his great tusks into the edge of the ice, while he lay breathing hard, just like an exhausted swimmer. Then he raised himself high up on his tusks, and looked across the ice towards the others lying there, and then dived down again. He soon reappeared, with a great deal of noise, farther in, and the same performance was gone through again. A walrus's head is not a beautiful object as it appears above the ice. With its huge tusks, its coarse whisker bristles, and clumsy shape, there is something wild and goblin-like about it which, I can easily understand, might inspire fear in more superstitious times, and give rise to the idea of fabulous monsters, with which in ancient days these seas were thought to swarm. At last the walrus came up in the hole beside which the others were lying, and raised himself a little way up on to the edge of the ice by his tusks; but upon this the bigger of the two, a huge old bull, suddenly awoke to life. He grunted menacingly, and moved about restlessly. The new-comer bowed his head respectfully down to the ice, but soon pulled himself cautiously up on to the floe, so as to get a hold with his fore-paddle, and then drew himself a little way in. Now the old bull was thoroughly roused. He turned round, bellowed, and floundered up to the new-comer in order to dig his enormous tusks into his back. The latter, who appeared to be the old bull's equal both as regards tusks and size, bowed humbly, and laid his head down upon the ice just like a slave before his sultan. The old bull returned to his companion, and lay quietly down as before, but no sooner did the new-comer stir, after having lain for some time in this servile posture, than the old bull grunted and thrust at him, and he once more respectfully drew back. This was repeated several times. At length, after much manoeuvring backward and forward, the new-comer succeeded in drawing himself on to the floe, and finally up beside the others. I thought the tender passion must have something to do with these proceedings; but I discovered afterwards that all three were males. And it is in this friendly manner that walruses receive their guests. It appears to be a specially chosen member of the flock that has these hospitable duties to perform. I am inclined to think it is the leader, who is asserting his dignity, and wishes to impress upon every new-comer that he is to be obeyed. These animals must be exceedingly sociable, when, in spite of such treatment, they thus constantly seek one another's society, and always lie close together. When we returned a little later to look at them another had arrived, and by the following morning six lay there side by side. It is not easy to believe that these lumps lying on the ice are living animals. With head drawn in and hind-legs flat beneath the body, they will lie motionless hour after hour, looking like enormous sausages. It is easy to see that these fellows lie there in security, and fearful of nothing in the world.

After having seen as much as we wanted of the walruses at close quarters, we went back, prepared a good meal from the newly slaughtered bear, and lay down to sleep. On the shore below the tent, the ivory-gulls were making a fearful hubbub. They had gathered in scores from all quarters, and could not agree as to the fair division of the bear's entrails; they fought incessantly, filling the air with their angry cries. It is one of nature's unaccountable freaks to have made this bird so pretty, while giving it such an ugly voice. At a little distance the burgomasters sat solemnly looking on and uttering their somewhat more melodious notes. Out in the sea the walruses were blowing and bellowing incessantly, but everything passed unheeded by the two weary warriors in the tent; they slept soundly, with the bare ground for their couch. In the middle of the night we were awakened, however, by a peculiar sound; it was just like some one whimpering and crying, and making great ado. I started up, and looked out of the peep-hole. Two bears were standing down beside our bear's flesh, a she-bear and her young one, and both sniffing at the bloody marks in the snow, while the she-bear wailed as if mourning for a dear departed one. I lost no time in seizing my gun, and was just putting it cautiously out, when the she-bear caught sight of me at the peep-hole, and off they both set, the mother in front, and the young one trotting after as fast as it could. I just let them run--we had really no use for them--and then we turned over and went to sleep again.

Nothing came of the storm we had feared. The wind blew hard enough, however, to rend and tear our now well-worn tent, and there was no shelter where we lay. We hoped to go on on the following day, but found, to our disappointment, that the way was blocked; the wind had again driven the ice in. We must remain for the present where we were; but in that case we would make ourselves as comfortable as possible. The first thing to be done was to seek for a warm, well-sheltered place for the tent, but this was not to be found. There was nothing for it but to get something built up of stone. We quarried stone in the débris at the bottom of the cliff, and got together as much as we could. The only quarrying implement we had was a runner that had been cut off a hand-sledge; but our two hands were what we had to use most. We worked away during the night. What we had at first only intended to be a shelter from the wind grew, little by little, into four walls; and we now kept at it until we had finished a small hut. It was nothing very wonderful, Heaven knows, not long enough for a man of my height to lie straight inside--I had to stick my feet out at the door--and just broad enough to admit of our lying side by side and leave room for the cooking apparatus. It was worse, however, with regard to the height. There was room to lie down, but to sit up decently straight was an impossibility for me. The roof was made of our thin and fragile silk tent, spread over snow-shoes and bamboo rods. We closed the doorway with our coats, and the walls were so loosely put together that we could see daylight between the stones on all sides. We afterwards called it the den, and a dreadful den it was, too; but we were none the less proud of our handiwork. It would not blow down at any rate, even though the wind did blow right through it. When we had got our bearskin in as a couch and lay warm and comfortable in our bag, while a good potful of meat bubbled over the train-oil lamp, we thought existence a pleasure; and the fact of there being so much smoke that our eyes became red and the tears streamed down our cheeks could not destroy our feeling of content.

As progress southward was blocked also on the following day (August 28th), and as autumn was now drawing on, I at last resolved on remaining here for the winter. I thought that we still had more than 138 miles to travel in order to reach Eira Harbor or Leigh Smith's wintering-place. [60] It might take us a long time to get there, and then we were not sure of finding any hut; and when we did get there, it would be more than doubtful if, before the winter set in, there would be time to build a house and also gather stores for the winter. It was undoubtedly the safest plan to begin at once to prepare for wintering while there was still plenty of game to be had; and this was a good spot to winter in. The first thing I should like to have done was to have shot the walruses that had been lying on the ice during the first day or two; but now, of course, they were gone. The sea, however, was swarming with them; they bellowed and blew night and day, and, in order to be ready for an encounter with them, we emptied our kayaks to make them more easy of manipulation in this somewhat dangerous chase. While thus engaged, Johansen caught sight of two bears--a she-bear and her cub--coming along the edge of the ice from the south. We lost no time in getting our guns and setting off towards them. By the time they reached the shore they were within range, and Johansen sent a bullet through the mother's chest. She roared, bit at the wound, staggered a few steps, and fell. The young one could not make out what was the matter with its mother, and ran round, sniffing at her. When we approached, it went off a little way up the slope, but soon came back again and took up a position over its mother, as if to defend her against us. A charge of small shot put an end to its life.

This was a good beginning to our winter store. As I was returning to the hut to fetch the seal-knives, I heard cries in the air above me. There were actually two geese flying south! With what longing I looked after them as they disappeared, only wishing that I could have followed them to the land towards which they were now wending their flight!

Next to food and fuel the most important thing was to get a hut built. To build the walls of this was not difficult; there was plenty of stone and moss. The roof presented greater difficulty, and we had as yet no idea what to make it of. Fortunately, I found a sound driftwood pine-log thrown up on to the shore not far from our den; this would make a capital ridge-piece for the roof of our future house. And if there was one, there might be others. One of our first acts, therefore, was to make an excursion up along the shore and search; but all we found was one short, rotten piece of wood, which was good for nothing, and some chips of another piece. I then began to think of using walrus-hides for the roof instead.

The following day (August 29th) we prepared to try our luck at walrus-hunting. We had no great desire to attack the animals in single kayaks; we had had enough of that, I thought, and the prospect of being upset or of having a tusk driven through the bottom of the kayak or into one's thigh was not altogether alluring. The kayaks were therefore lashed together, and, seated upon the ring, we put out towards the big bull which lay and dived just outside. We were well equipped with guns and harpoons, and thought that it was all quite simple. Nor was it difficult to get within range, and we emptied our barrels into the animal's head. It lay stunned for a moment, and we rowed towards it, but suddenly it began to splash and whirl round in the water, completely beside itself. I shouted out that we must back, but it was too late: the walrus got under the kayaks, and we received several blows underneath, in the violence of its contortions, before it finally dived. It soon came up again, and now the sound of its breathing resounded on all sides, while blood streamed from its mouth and nostrils, and dyed the surrounding water. We lost no time in rowing up to it and pouring a fresh volley into its head. Again it dived, and we cautiously drew back, to avoid receiving an attack from below. It soon appeared again, and we once more rowed up to it. These manoeuvres were repeated, and each time it came to the surface it received at least one bullet in the head, and grew more and more exhausted; but, as it always faced us, it was difficult to give it a mortal wound behind the ear. The blood, however, now flowed in streams. During one of these manoeuvres I was in the act of placing my gun hurriedly in its case on the deck, in order to row nearer, forgetting that it was cocked, when all at once it went off. I was rather alarmed, thinking the ball had gone through the bottom of the kayak, and I began feeling my legs. They were uninjured, however, and as I did not hear the water rushing in either I was reassured. The ball had passed through the deck and out through the side a little above the water-line. We had now had enough of this sport, however; the walrus only lay gasping for breath, and just as we rowed towards it it turned its head a little, and received two bullets just behind the ear. It lay still, and we rowed up to throw our harpoon; but before we got near enough it sank and disappeared. It was a melancholy ending to the affair. In all, nine cartridges had been expended to no purpose, and we silently rowed to shore, not a little crestfallen. We tried no more walrus-hunting from kayaks that day; but we now saw that a walrus had come up on to the shore-ice a little way off. Perhaps we were to receive compensation there for the one we had just lost. It was not long before another came up beside the first. After having taken an observation and given them time to compose themselves, we set off. Having bellowed and made a horrible noise out there for some time, they now lay asleep and unsuspecting, and we stole cautiously up to them, I in front and Johansen close at my heels. I first went up to the head of the nearer one, which was lying with its back to us. As it had drawn its head well down, and it was difficult to get a shot at a vulnerable point, I passed behind it, and up to the head of the other one. The animals still lay motionless, asleep in the sun. The second was in a better position for a shot, and, when I saw Johansen standing ready at the head of the first, I fired at the back of the neck. The animal turned over a little, and lay there dead. At the report the first started up, but at the same moment received Johansen's bullet. Half stunned, it turned its gigantic body round towards us; in a moment I had discharged the ball from my smooth-bore at it, but, like Johansen, I hit too far forward in the head. The blood streamed from its nostrils and mouth, and it breathed and coughed till the air vibrated. Supporting itself upon its enormous tusks, it now lay still, coughing blood like a consumptive person, and quite indifferent to us. In spite of its huge body and shapeless appearance, which called up to the imagination bogy, giant, and kraken, and other evil things, there was something so gently supplicating and helpless in its round eyes as it lay there that its goblin exterior and one's own need were forgotten in pity for it. It almost seemed like murder. I put an end to its sufferings by a bullet behind the ear, but those eyes haunt me yet; it seemed as if in them lay the prayer for existence of the whole helpless walrus race. But it is lost; it has man as its pursuer. It cannot, however, be denied that we rejoiced at the thought of all the meat and blubber we had now brought down in one encounter; it made up for the cartridges expended upon the one that had sunk. But we had not got them on land yet, and it would be a long piece of work to get them skinned and cut up and brought home. The first thing we did was to go after sledges and knives. As there was a possibility, too, of the ice breaking off and being set adrift, I also thought it wise to take the kayaks on the sledges at the same time, for it had begun to blow a little from the fjord. But for this fortunate precaution it is not easy to say what would have become of us. While we were engaged in skinning, the wind rose rapidly, and soon became a storm. To landward of us was the narrow channel or lane beside which the walruses had been lying. I feared that the ice might open here, and we drift away. While we worked I therefore kept an eye on it to see if it grew broader. It remained unchanged, and we went on skinning as fast as we could. When the first walrus was half skinned, I happened to look landward across the ice, and discovered that it had broken off a good way from us, and that the part on which we stood had already been drifting for some time; there was black water between us and the shore-ice, and the wind was blowing so that the spray flew from the foaming waves. There was no time to be lost; it was more than doubtful whether we should be able to paddle any great distance against that wind and sea, but as yet the ice did not appear to have drifted a greater distance from the land than we could cross, if we made haste. We could not bring ourselves to give up entirely the huge animals we had brought down, and we hurriedly cut off as much flesh as we could get at and flung it into the kayaks. We then cut off about a quarter of the skin, with the blubber on it, and threw it on the top, and then set off for the shore. We had scarcely abandoned our booty before the gulls bore down in scores upon the half-skinned carcass. Happy creatures! Wind and waves and drifting were nothing to them; they screamed and made a hubbub and thought what a feast they were having. As long as we could see the carcasses as they drifted out to sea, we saw the birds continually gathering in larger and larger flocks about them like clouds of snow. In the meantime we were doing our utmost to gain the ice, but it had developed cracks and channels in every direction. We managed to get some distance in the kayaks; but while I was crossing a wide channel on some loose floes I alighted on such poor ice that it sank under my weight, and I had to jump back quickly to escape a bath. We tried in several places, but everywhere it sank beneath us and our sledges, and there was nothing for it but to take to the water, keeping along the lee-side of the ice. But we had not rowed far before we perceived that it was of no use to have our kayaks lashed together in such a wind; we had to row singly, and sacrifice the walrus hide and blubber, which it then became impossible to take with us. At present it was lying across the stern of both kayaks. While we were busy effecting these changes we were surrounded, before we were aware of it, by ice, and had to pull the kayaks up hastily to save them from being crushed. We now tried to get out at several places, but the ice was in constant motion; it ground round as in a whirlpool. If a channel opened, we had no sooner launched our kayaks than it once more closed violently, and we had to snatch them up in the greatest haste. Several times they were within a hair's-breadth of being smashed. Meanwhile the storm was steadily increasing, the spray dashed over us, and we drifted farther and farther out to sea. The situation was not pleasant.

At length, however, we got clear, and now discovered, to our joy, that by exerting our utmost strength we could just force the kayaks on against the wind. It was a hard pull, and our arms ached; but still we crept slowly on towards land. The sea was choppy and bad, but our kayaks were good sea-boats; and even mine, with the bullet-hole in it, did so well that I kept to some extent dry. The wind came now and then in such gusts that we felt as if it might lift us out of the water and upset us; but gradually, as we drew nearer in under the high cliffs, it became quieter, and at last, after a long time, we reached the shore, and could take breath. We then rowed in smoother water along the shore up to our camping-place. It was with genuine satisfaction that we clambered on shore that night, and how unspeakably comfortable it was to be lying again snugly within four walls in our little den, wet though we were! A good potful of meat was prepared, and our appetite was ravenous. It was, indeed, with sorrow that we thought of the lost walruses now drifting out there in the storm; but we were glad that we were not still in their company.

I had not slept long, when I was awakened by Johansen, who said there was a bear outside. Even when only half awake, I heard a strange, low grunting just outside the doorway. I started up, seized my gun, and crept out. A she-bear with two large cubs was going up the shore; they had just passed close by our door. I aimed at the she-bear, but, in my haste, I missed her. She started and looked round; and as she turned her broadside to me I sent a bullet through her chest. She gave a fearful roar, and all three started off down the shore. There the mother dropped in a pool on the ice, but the young ones ran on and rushed into the sea, dashing up the foam as they went, and began to swim out. I hastened down to the mother, who was striving and striving to get out of the pool, but in vain. To save ourselves the labor of dragging the heavy animal out, I waited until she had drawn herself up on to the edge, and then put an end to her existence. Meanwhile the young ones had reached a piece of ice. It was very close quarters for two, and only just large enough to hold them; but there they sat, balancing and dipping up and down in the waves. Every now and then one of them fell off, but patiently clambered up again. They cried plaintively and incessantly, and kept looking towards land, unable to understand why their mother was so long in coming. The wind was still high, and they drifted quickly out to sea before it with the current. We thought they would at last swim to land to look for their mother, and that we must wait; we therefore hid ourselves among the stones, so that they should not be afraid of coming on our account. We could still hear them complaining, but the sound became more and more distant, and they grew smaller and smaller out there on the blue waves, till at last it was all we could do to distinguish them as two white dots far out upon the dark plain. We had long been tired of this, and went to our kayaks. But here a sad sight met our eyes. All the walrus flesh which we had brought home with so much trouble lay scattered about on the shore, torn and mangled; and every bit of fat or blubber to be found on it had been devoured. The bears must have been rummaging finely here while we slept. One of the kayaks in which the meat had been lying was thrown half into the water, the other high up among the stones. The bears had been right into them and dragged out the meat; but, fortunately, they were none the worse, so it was easy to forgive the bears, and we benefited by the exchange of bear's flesh for walrus flesh.

We then launched the kayaks, and put off to chase the young ones to land. As soon as ever they saw us on the water they became uneasy, and while we were still some way off one of them took to the water. The other hesitated for a while, as if afraid of the water, while the first waited impatiently; but at last they both went in. We made a wide circuit round them, and began to drive them towards the land, one of us on each side of them. It was easy to make them go in whatever direction we wanted, and Johansen could not say enough in praise of this simple method of getting bears from one place to another. We did not need to row hard to keep up with them; we went slowly and easily, but surely, towards land. We saw several walruses in the vicinity, but fortunately escaped being attacked by any of them. From the very first it was evident how much better the bear that first went into the water swam, although it was the smaller and thinner. It waited, however, patiently for the other, and kept it company; but at last the pace of the latter became too slow for its companion, who struck out for the shore, the distance between the two growing greater and greater. They had kept incessantly turning their heads to look anxiously at us, and now the one that was left behind looked round even more helplessly than before. While I set off after the first bear, Johansen watched the second, and we drove them ashore by our den, and shot them there.

We had thus taken three bears on that day, and this was a good set-off against our walruses, which had drifted out to sea, and, what was no less fortunate, we found the sunken walrus from the day before floating just at the edge of the shore. We lost no time in towing it into a place of safety in a creek and making it fast. It made a difference to our winter store.

It was late before we turned in that night after having skinned the bears, laid them in a heap, and covered them with the skins to prevent the gulls from getting at them. We slept well, for we had to make up for two nights.

It was not until September 2d that we could set to work on the skinning of our walrus, which still lay in the water. Close to our den there was an opening in the strand-ice, [61] connecting the inner channel between the strand-ice and the land with the outer sea. It was in this opening that we had made it fast, and we hoped to be able to draw it on land here; the glacier-ice went with a gentle incline right out into the water, so that it seemed to promise well. We rounded off the edge of the ice, made a tackle by drawing the rope through a loop we cut in the skin of the head, used our broken-off runner of a sledge as a handspike at the end of the rope, and cut notches in the ice up the beach as a fulcrum for the handspike. But work and toil as we might, it was all we could do to get the huge head up over the edge of the ice. In the midst of this Johansen cried, "I say, look there!" I turned. A large walrus was swimming straight up the channel towards us. It did not seem to be in any hurry, but only opened wide its round eyes, and gazed in astonishment at us and at what we were doing. I suppose that, seeing a comrade, it had come in to see what we were doing with him. Quietly, slowly, and with dignity it came right up to the edge where we stood. Fortunately we had our guns with us, and when I approached with mine it only rose up in the water and gazed long and searchingly at me. I waited patiently until it turned a little, and then sent a bullet into the back of its head. It was stunned for a time, but soon began to move, so that more shots were required. While Johansen ran for cartridges and a harpoon I had to fight with it as I best could, and try to prevent it, with a stick, from splashing out of the channel again. At last Johansen returned, and I did for this walrus. We were delighted over our good fortune; but what the walrus wanted in that narrow channel we have always wondered. These animals must be uncommonly curious. While we were skinning the bears two days before, a walrus with its young one came close in to the edge of the ice and gazed at us; it dived several times, but always returned, and at last drew the whole of the forepart of its body up on to the ice in order to see better. This it did several times, and my approaching to within a few yards of it did not drive it away; it was only when I went up close to it with my gun that it suddenly came to its senses and threw itself backward into the water again, and we could see it far below moving off with its young one by its side.

We now had two great walruses with enormous tusks floating in our channel. We tried once more to drag one of them up, but the attempt was as unsuccessful as before. At last we saw that our only course was to skin them in the water; but this was neither an easy nor an agreeable task. When at last, late in the evening, we had got one side of one animal skinned, it was low-water; the walrus lay on the bottom, and there was no possibility of turning it over, no matter how we toiled and pulled. We had to wait for high tide the following day, in order to get at the other side.

While we were busy with the walruses that day we suddenly saw the whole fjord white with white whales gambolling all round as far as the eye could see. There was an incredible number of them. In the course of an hour they had entirely disappeared. Where they came from and whither they went I was not able to discover.

During the succeeding days we toiled at our task of skinning and cutting up the walruses, and bringing all up into a safe place on the beach. It was disgusting work, lying on the animals out in the water and having to cut down as far as one could reach below the surface of the water. We could put up with getting wet, for one gets dry in time; but what was worse was that we could not avoid being saturated with blubber and oil and blood from head to foot; and our poor clothes, that we should have to live in for another year before we could change, fared badly during those days. They so absorbed oil that it went right through to the skin. This walrus business was unquestionably the worst work of the whole expedition, and had it not been a sheer necessity we should have let the animals lie where they were; but we needed fuel for the winter, even if we could have done without the meat. When at last the task was completed, and we had two great heaps of blubber and meat on shore, well covered by the thick walrus hides, we were not a little pleased.

During this time the gulls were living in luxury. There was abundance of refuse, blubber, entrails, and other internal organs. They gathered in large flocks from all quarters, both ivory and glaucus gulls, and kept up a perpetual screaming and noise both night and day. When they had eaten as much as they could manage they generally sat out on the ice-hummocks and chattered together. When we came down to skin they withdrew only a very little way from the carcasses, and sat waiting patiently in long rows on the ice beside us, or, led on by a few bold officers, drew continually nearer. No sooner did a little scrap of blubber fall than two or three ivory-gulls would pounce upon it, often at our very feet, and fight over it until the feathers flew. Outside the fulmars were sailing in their silent, ghost-like flight to and fro over the surface of the water. Up and down the edge of the shore flocks of kittiwakes moved incessantly, darting like an arrow, with a dull splash, towards the surface of the water, whenever a little crustacean appeared there. We were particularly fond of these birds, for they kept exclusively to the marine animals and left our blubber alone; and then they were so light and pretty. But up and down along the shore the skua (Stercorarius crepidatus) chased incessantly, and every now and again we were startled by a pitiful cry of distress above our heads; it was a kittiwake pursued by a skua. How often we followed with our eyes that wild chase up in the air, until at last the kittiwake had to drop its booty, and down shot the skua, catching it even before it touched the water! Happy creatures that can move with such freedom up there! Out in the water lay walruses, diving and bellowing, often whole herds of them; and high up in the air, to and fro, flew the little auks in swarms; you could hear the whir of their wings far off. There were cries and life on all sides. But soon the sun will sink, the sea will close in, the birds will disappear one after another towards the south, the polar night will begin, and there will be profound, unbroken silence.

It was with pleasure that we at last, on September 7th, set to work to build our hut. We had selected a good site in the neighborhood, and from this time forward we might have been seen daily going out in the morning like other laborers, with a can of drinking-water in one hand and a gun in the other. We quarried stones up among the débris from the cliff, dragged them together, dug out the site, and built walls as well as we could. We had no tools worth mentioning; those we used most were our two hands. The cut-off sledge-runner again did duty as a pick with which to loosen the fast-frozen stones, and when we could not manage to dig up the earth on our site with our hands we used a snow-shoe staff with an iron ferrule. We made a spade out of the shoulder-blade of a walrus tied to a piece of a broken snow-shoe staff, and a mattock out of a walrus tusk tied to the crosstree of a sledge. They were poor things to work with, but we managed it with patience, and little by little there arose solid walls of stone with moss and earth between. The weather was growing gradually colder, and hindered us not a little in our work. The soil we had to dig in hardened, and the stones that had to be quarried froze fast; and there came snow too. But great was our surprise when we crept out of our den on the morning of the 12th of September to find the most delightful thaw, with 4° (C.) of heat (39.2° Fahr.). This was almost the highest temperature we had experienced throughout the expedition. On every side streams were tumbling in foaming falls down from mountain and glacier, humming along merrily among the stones down to the sea. Water trickled and tinkled everywhere; as if by a stroke of magic, life had returned to frozen nature, and the hill looked green all over. One could fancy one's self far south, and forget that a long, long winter was drawing near. The day after, everything was changed again. The gentle gods of the south, who yesterday had put forth their last energies, had once more fled; the cold had returned, snow had fallen and covered every trace: it would not yield again. This little strip of bare ground, too, was in the power of the genii of the cold and darkness; they held sway now, right down to the sea. I stood looking out over it. How desolate and forsaken this spell-bound nature looked! My eye fell upon the ground at my feet. Down there among the stones, the poppy still reared its beautiful blossoms above the snow; the last rays of the departing sun would once more kiss its yellow petals, and then it would creep beneath its covering to sleep through the long winter, and awake again to new life in the spring. Ah to be able to do the same!

After a week's work the walls of our hut were finished. They were not high, scarcely 3 feet above the ground; but we had dug down the same distance into the ground, so we reckoned that it would be high enough to stand up in. Now the thing was to get it roofed, but this was not so easy. The only materials we had towards it were, as before mentioned, the log we had found and the walrus hides. The log, which was quite 12 inches across, Johansen at last, after a day's work, succeeded in cutting in two with our little axe, and with no less labor we rolled it up over the talus and on to the level, and it was laid on the roof as the ridgepiece. Then there were the hides; but they were stiff and frozen fast to the meat and blubber heaps which they covered. With much difficulty we at length loosened them by using wedges of walrus tusks, stone, and wood. To transport these great skins over the long distance to our hut was a no less difficult matter. However, by rolling them, carrying them, and dragging them we accomplished this too; but to get the frozen skins stretched over the hut was the worst of all. We got on pretty well with three half-skins, just managing to bend them a little; but the fourth half was frozen quite stiff, and we had to find a hole in the ice, and sink it in the sea, to thaw it.

It was almost a cause for anxiety, I thought, that all this time we saw nothing of any bears. They were what we had to live upon all through the winter, and the six we had would not go far. I thought, however, that it might easily be accounted for, as the fjord-ice, to which the bear prefers to keep, had taken its departure on the day when we had nearly drifted out to sea with the walruses, and I thought that, when the ice now formed again, bears would appear once more. It was therefore a relief when one morning (September 23d) I caught sight of a bear in front of me, just as I came round the promontory to look at the skin that we had in soak in the sea. It was standing on the shore close by the skin. It had not seen me, and I quickly drew back to let Johansen, who was following with his gun, pass me, while I ran back to fetch mine. When I returned, Johansen lay on the same spot behind a stone, and had not fired. There were two bears, one by the hut and one by the shore; and Johansen could not get up to the one without being seen by the other. When I had gone after my gun the bear had turned its steps towards the hut; but just as it reached it Johansen suddenly saw two bear's paws come quickly over the edge of the wall and hit out at the first bear, and a head followed immediately after. This fellow was busily gnawing at our roof hides, which he had torn down and bent, so that we had to put them into the sea too, to get them thawed. The first bear had to retreat to the shore once more, where we afterwards discovered it had drawn up our hide and had been scraping the fat off it. Under cover of some hummocks we now ran towards it. It noticed us, and set off running, and I was only able to send a bullet through its body from behind. Shouting out to Johansen that he must look after the other bear, I set off running, and after a couple of hours' pursuit up the fjord I at last chased it up under the wall of a glacier, where it prepared to defend itself. I went right up to it, but it growled and hissed, and made one or two attacks on me from the elevation on which it stood before I finally put an end to its existence. When I got back Johansen was busy skinning the other bear. It had been alarmed by us when we attacked the first, and had gone a long way out over the ice; it had then returned to look for its companion, and Johansen had shot it. Our winter store was increasing.

The next day (September 24th), as we were setting out to work at our hut, we saw a large herd of walruses lying out on the ice. We had both had more than enough of these animals, and had very little inclination for them. Johansen was of candid opinion that we had no need for them, and could let them lie in peace; but I thought it was rather improvident to have food and fuel lying at one's very door and make no use of them so we set off with our guns. To steal up to the animals, under cover of some elevations on the ice, was a matter of small difficulty, and we had soon come within 40 feet of them, and could lie there quietly and watch them. The point was to choose one's victim, and make good use of one's shot, so as not to waste cartridges. There were both old and young animals, and, having had more than enough of big ones, we decided to try for the two smallest that we could see; we thought we had no need of more than two. As we lay waiting for them to turn their heads and give us the chance of a good shot, we had plenty of opportunity to watch them. They are strange animals. They lay incessantly poking one another in the back with their huge tusks, both the big old ones and the little young ones. If one of them turned over a little, so as to come near and disturb his neighbor, the latter immediately raised itself, grunting, and dug its tusks into the back of the first. It was by no means a gentle caress, and it is well for them that they have such a thick hide; but, as it was, the blood ran down the backs of several of them. The other would, perhaps, start up too, and return the little attention in the same manner. But it was when another guest came up from the sea that there was a stir in the camp; they all grunted in chorus, and one of the old bulls that lay nearest to the new arrival gave him some well-meant blows. The new-comer, however, drew himself cautiously up, bowed respectfully, and little by little drew himself in among the others, who also then gave him as many blows as time and circumstances would permit, until they finally composed themselves again, and lay quiet until another interruption came. We waited in vain for the animals we had picked out to turn their heads enough to let us get a good shot; but as they were comparatively small we thought that a bullet in the middle of the forehead might be enough for them, and at last we fired. They started up, however, and turned over, half stunned, into the water. Then there was a commotion! The whole herd quickly raised their ugly heads, glared at us, and one by one plunged out over the edge of the ice. We had hastily loaded again, and as it was not difficult now to get a good shot we fired, and there lay two animals, one young and one old. Most of the others dived, only one remaining quietly lying, and looking wonderingly, now at its two dead companions, and now at us as we came up to it. We did not quite know what to do; we thought that the two that were now lying there would give us more than enough to do, but nevertheless it was tempting to take this great monster as well, while we were about it. While Johansen was standing with his gun, considering whether he should fire or not, I took the opportunity of photographing both him and the walrus. It ended, however, in our letting it go unharmed; we did not think we could afford to sacrifice more cartridges upon it. Meantime the water beyond was seething with furious animals, as they broke up the ice round about and filled the air with their roaring. The big bull himself seemed especially anxious to get at us; he kept returning to the edge of the ice, getting half up on to it to grunt and bellow at us and look long at his dead comrades, whom he evidently wished to take with him. But we would not waste more cartridges upon them, and he threw himself back, only to return again immediately. Gradually the whole herd departed, and we could hear the big bull's grunting becoming more and more distant; but suddenly his huge head appeared again at the edge of the ice, close to us, as he challenged us with a roar, and then disappeared again as quickly as he had come. This was repeated three or four times after our having in the intervals heard him far out; but at last he disappeared entirely, and we continued our work of skinning in peace. We very quickly skinned the smaller of the walruses; it was easy to manipulate compared to those we were accustomed to. The other, however, was a great fellow that could not be easily turned over in the hollow in the snow where he lay; so we contented ourselves with skinning one side from head to tail, and then went home again with our blubber and skins. We now thought we should have blubber enough for winter fuel, and had also abundance of skins for covering the roof of our hut.

The walruses still kept near us for some time. Every now and then we would hear some violent blows on the ice from beneath, two or three in succession, and then a great head would burst up with a crash through the ice. It would remain there for a time panting and puffing so that it would be heard a long way off, and then vanish again. On September 25th, while we were pulling our roof hides out of the water at a hole near the shore, we heard the same crashing in the ice a little farther out, and a walrus came up and then dived again. "Look there! It won't be long before we have him in this hole." The words were scarcely spoken, when our hide in the water was pushed aside and a huge head, with bristles and two long tusks, popped up in front of us. It gazed fixedly and wickedly at us standing there, then there was a tremendous splash and it was gone.

Our hides were now so far softened in the sea that we could stretch them over the roof. They were so long that they reached from one side of the hut right over the ridge-piece down to the other side, and we stretched them by hanging large stones at both ends, attached by strips of hide, thus weighing them down over the edges of the wall, and we then piled stones upon them. By the aid of stones, moss, strips of hide, and snow to cover everything, we made the edges of the walls to some extent close-fitting. To make the hut habitable we still had to construct benches of stone to lie upon inside it, and also a door. This consisted of an opening in one corner of the wall, which led into a short passage dug out in the ground and subsequently roofed over with blocks of ice, on very much the same principle as the passage to an Eskimo's house. We had not dug this passage so long as we wished before the ground was frozen too hard for our implements. It was so low that we had to creep through it in a squatting posture to get into the hut. The inner opening was covered with a bearskin curtain, sewed firmly to the walrus hide of the roof; the outer end was covered with a loose bearskin laid over the opening. It began to grow cold now, as low as -20° C. (4° below zero, Fahr.); and living in our low den, where we had not room to move, became more and more intolerable. The smoke, too, from the oil-lamp, when we did any cooking, always affected our eyes. We grew daily more impatient to move into our new house, which now appeared to us the acme of comfort. Our ever-recurring remark while we were building was, how nice and snug it would be when we got in, and we depicted to each other the many pleasant hours we should spend there. We were, of course, anxious to discover all the bright points that we could in our existence. The hut was certainly not large; it was 10 feet long and 6 feet wide, and when you lay across it you kicked the wall on one side and butted it on the other. You could move in it a little, however, and even I could almost stand upright under the roof. This was a thought which especially appealed to us. Fancy having a place sheltered from the wind where you could stretch your limbs a little! We had not had that since last March, on board the Fram. It was long, however, before everything was in order, and we would not move in until it was quite finished.

The day we had skinned our last walruses I had taken several tendons from their backs, thinking they might be very useful when we made ourselves clothes for the winter, for we were entirely without thread for that purpose. Not until a few days afterwards (September 26th) did I recollect that these tendons had been left on the ice beside the carcasses. I went out there to look for them, but found, to my sorrow, that gulls and foxes had long since made away with them. It was some comfort, however, to find traces of a bear, which must have been at the carcasses during the night, and as I looked about I caught sight of Johansen running after me, making signs and pointing out towards the sea. I turned that way, and there was a large bear, walking to and fro and looking at us. We had soon fetched our guns, and while Johansen remained near the land to receive the bear if it came that way, I made a wide circuit round it on the ice to drive it landward, if it should prove to be frightened. In the meantime, it had lain down out there beside some holes, I suppose to watch for seals. I stole up to it; it saw me and at first came nearer, but then thought better of it, and moved away again, slowly and majestically, out over the new ice. I had no great desire to follow it in that direction, and though the range was long I thought I must try it. First one shot; it passed over. Then one more; that hit. The bear started, made several leaps, and then in anger struck the ice until it broke, and the bear fell through. There it lay, splashing and splashing and breaking the thin ice with its weight as it tried to get out again. I was soon beside it, but did not want to sacrifice another cartridge; I had faint hopes, too, that it would manage to get out of the water by itself, and thus save us the trouble of dragging such a heavy animal out. I called to Johansen to come with a rope, sledges, and knives, and in the meantime I walked up and down waiting and watching. The bear labored hard, and made the opening in the ice larger and larger. It was wounded in one of its fore-legs, so that it could use only the other, and the two hind-legs. It kept on taking hold and pulling itself up. But no sooner had it got half up than the ice gave way, and it sank down again. By degrees its movements became more and more feeble, till at last it only lay still and panted. Then came a few spasms, its legs stiffened, its head sank down into the water, and all was still. While I was walking up and down I several times heard walruses round about, as they butted holes in the ice and put their heads through; and I was thinking to myself that I should soon have them here too. At that moment the bear received a violent blow from beneath, pushing it to one side, and up came a huge head with great tusks; it snorted, looked contemptuously at the bear, then gazed for a while wonderingly at me as I stood on the ice, and finally disappeared again. This had the effect of making me think the old solid ice a little farther in a pleasanter place of sojourn than the new ice. My suspicion that the walrus entertains no fear for the bear was more than ever strengthened. At last Johansen came with a rope. We slipped a running noose round the bear's neck and tried to haul it out, but soon discovered that this was beyond our power; all we did was to break the ice under the animal, wherever we tried. It seemed hard to have to give it up; it was a big bear and seemed to be unusually fat; but to continue in this way until we had towed up to the edge of the thick ice would be a lengthy proceeding. By cutting quite a narrow crack in the new ice, only wide enough to draw the rope through, up to the edge of a large piece of ice which was quite near, we got pretty well out of the difficulty. It was now an easy matter to draw the bear thither under the ice, and after breaking a sufficiently large hole we drew it out there. At last we had got it skinned and cut up, and, heavily laden with our booty, we turned our steps homeward late in the evening to our den. As we approached the beach where our kayaks were lying upon one of our heaps of walrus blubber and meat, Johansen suddenly whispered to me, "I say, look there!" I looked up, and there stood three bears on the heaps, tearing at the blubber. They were a she-bear and two young ones. "Oh dear!" said I; "shall we have to set to at bears again?" I was tired, and, to tell the truth, had far more desire for our sleeping-bag and a good potful of meat. In a trice we had got our guns out, and were approaching cautiously; but they had caught sight of us, and set off over the ice. It was with an undeniable feeling of gratitude that we watched their retreating forms. A little later, while I was standing cutting up the meat and Johansen had gone to fetch water, I heard him whistle. I looked up, and he pointed out over the ice. There in the dusk were the three bears coming back--our blubber-heap had been too tempting for them. I crept with my gun behind some stones close to the heap. The bears came straight on, looking neither to right nor left, and as they passed me I took as good an aim at the she-bear as the darkness would allow, and fired. She roared, bit her side, and all three set off out over the ice. There the mother fell, and the young ones stood astonished and troubled beside her until we approached, when they fled, and it was impossible to get within range of them. They kept at a respectful distance, and watched us while we dragged the dead bear to land and skinned it. When we went out next morning, they were standing sniffing at the skin and meat; but before we could get within range they saw us, and were off again. We now saw that they had been there all night, and had eaten up their own mother's stomach, which had contained some pieces of blubber. In the afternoon they returned once more; and again we attempted, but in vain, to get a shot at them. Next morning (Saturday, September 28th), when we crawled out, we caught sight of a large bear lying asleep on our blubber-heap. Johansen crept up close to it under cover of some stones. The bear heard something moving, raised its head, and looked round. At the same instant Johansen fired, and the bullet went right through the bear's throat, just below the cranium. It got slowly up, looked contemptuously at Johansen, considered a little, and then walked quietly away with long, measured steps, as if nothing had happened. It soon had a couple of bullets from each of us in its body, and fell out on the thin ice. It was so full of food that, as it lay there, blubber and oil and water ran out of its mouth on to the ice, which began gradually to sink under its weight, until it lay in a large pool, and we hastily dragged it in to the shore, before the ice gave way beneath it. It was one of the largest bears I have ever seen, but also one of the leanest; for there was not a trace of fat upon it, neither underneath the skin nor among the entrails. It must have been fasting for a long time and been uncommonly hungry; for it had consumed an incredible quantity of our blubber. And how it had pulled it about! First it had thrown one kayak off, then it had scattered the blubber about in all directions, scraping off the best of the fat upon almost every single piece; then it had gathered the blubber together again in another place, and then, happy with the happiness of satiety, had lain down to sleep upon it, perhaps so as to have it handy when it woke up again. Previous to attacking the blubber-heap it had accomplished another piece of work, which we only discovered later on. It had killed both the young bears that had been visiting us; we found them not far off, with broken skulls and frozen stiff. We could see by the footprints how it had run after them out over the new ice, first one and then the other, and had dragged them on land, and laid them down without touching them again. What pleasure it can have in doing this I do not understand, but it must have regarded them as competitors in the struggle for food. Or was it, perhaps, a cross old gentleman who did not like young people? "It is so nice and quiet here now," said the ogre, when he had cleared the country.

Our winter store now began quite to inspire confidence.

At length, on the evening of that day, we moved into our new hut; but our first night there was a cold one. Hitherto we had slept in one bag all the time, and even the one we had made by sewing together our two blankets had been fairly adequate. But now we thought it would not be necessary to sleep in one bag any longer, as we should make the hut so warm by burning train-oil lamps in it that we could very well lie each in our own berth with a blanket over us, and so we had unpicked the bag. Lamps were made by turning up the corners of some sheets of German silver, filling them with crushed blubber, and laying in this, by way of a wick, some pieces of stuff from the bandages in the medicine-bag. They burned capitally, and gave such a good light, too, that we thought it looked very snug; but it neither was nor ever would be sufficient to warm our still rather permeable hut, and we lay and shivered with cold all night. We almost thought it was the coldest night we had had. Breakfast next morning tasted excellent, and the quantity of bear-broth we consumed in order to put a little warmth into our bodies is incredible. We at once decided to alter this by making along the back wall of the hut a sleeping-shelf broad enough for us to lie beside one another. The blankets were sewed together again, we spread bearskins under us, and were as comfortable as we could be under the circumstances; and we made no further attempt to part company at night. It was impossible to make the substratum at all even, with the rough, angular stones which, now that everything was frozen, were all we had at our disposal, and therefore we lay tossing and twisting the whole winter to find something like a comfortable place among all the knobs. But it was hard, and remained so; and we always had some tender spots on our body, and even sores on our hips, with lying. But, for all that, we slept. In one corner of the hut we made a little hearth to boil and roast upon. In the roof above we cut a round hole in the walrus hide, and made a smoke-board up to it of bearskin. We had not used this hearth long before we saw the necessity of building a chimney to prevent the wind from beating down, and so filling the hut with smoke as to make it sometimes intolerable. The only materials we had for building this were ice and snow; but with these we erected a grand chimney on the roof, which served its purpose, and made a good draught. It was not quite permanent, however; the hole in it constantly widened with use, and it was not altogether guiltless of sometimes dripping down on to the hearth; but there was abundance of this building material, and it was not difficult to renew the chimney when it was in need of repair. This had to be done two or three times during the course of the winter. On more exposed spots we employed walrus flesh, bone, and such-like materials to strengthen it.

Our cookery was as simple as possible. It consisted in boiling bear's flesh and soup (bouillon) in the morning and frying steak in the evening. We consumed large quantities at every meal, and, strange to say, we never grew tired of this food, but always ate it with a ravenous appetite. We sometimes either ate blubber with it or dipped the pieces of meat in a little oil. A long time might often pass when we ate almost nothing but meat, and scarcely tasted fat; but when one of us felt inclined for it again he would, perhaps, fish up some pieces of burnt blubber out of the lamps, or eat what was left of the blubber from which we had melted the lamp-oil. We called these cakes, and thought them uncommonly nice, and we were always talking of how delicious they would have been if we could have had a little sugar on them.

We still had some of the provisions we had brought from the Fram, but these we decided not to use during the winter. They were placed in a depot to be kept until the spring, when we should move on. The depot was well loaded with stones to prevent the foxes from running away with the bags. They were impudent enough already, and took all the movable property they could lay hold of. I discovered, for instance, on October 10th, that they had gone off with a quantity of odds and ends I had left in another depot during the erection of the hut; they had taken everything that they could possibly carry with them, such as pieces of bamboo, steel wire, harpoons and harpoon-lines, my collection of stones, mosses, etc., which were stored in small sail-cloth bags. Perhaps the worst of all was that they had gone off with a large ball of twine, which had been our hope and comfort when thinking of the time when we should want to make clothes, shoes, and sleeping-bags of bearskin for the winter; for we had reckoned on making thread out of the twine. It was fortunate that they had not gone off with the theodolite and our other instruments which stood there; but these must have been too heavy for them. I was angry when I made this discovery, and, what made it more aggravating, it happened on my birthday. And matters did not improve when, while hunting about in the twilight on the beach above the place where the things had been lying, to see if I could at any rate discover tracks to show which way those demons had taken them, I met a fox that stopped at a distance of 20 feet from me, sat down, and uttered some exasperating howls, so piercing and weird that I had to stop my ears. It was evidently on its way to my things again, and was now provoked at being disturbed. I got hold of some large stones and flung them at it. It ran off a little way, but then seated itself upon the edge of the glacier and howled on, while I went home to the hut in a rage, lay down, and speculated as to what we should do to be revenged on the obnoxious animals. We could not spare cartridges to shoot them with, but we might make a trap of stones. This we determined to do, but nothing ever came of it; there were always so many other things to occupy us at first, while we still had the opportunity, before the snow covered the talus, and while it was light enough to find suitable stones. Meanwhile the foxes continued to annoy us. One day they had taken our thermometer, [62] which we always kept outside the hut, and gone off with it. We searched for it in vain for a long time, until at last we found it buried in a heap of snow a little way off. From that time we were very careful to place a stone over it at night, but one morning found that the foxes had turned over the stone, and had gone off with the thermometer again. The only thing we found this time was the case, which they had thrown away a little way off. The thermometer itself we were never to see again; the snow had unfortunately drifted in the night, so that the tracks had disappeared. Goodness only knows what fox-hole it now adorns; but from that day we learned a lesson, and henceforward fastened our last thermometer securely.

Meanwhile time passed. The sun sank lower and lower, until on October 15th we saw it for the last time above the ridge to the south; the days grew rapidly darker, and then began our third polar night.

We shot two more bears in the autumn, one on the 8th and one on the 21st of October; but from that time we saw no more until the following spring. When I awoke on the morning of October 8th I heard the crunching of heavy steps in the snow outside, and then began a rummaging about among our meat and blubber up on the roof. I could hear it was a bear, and crept out with my gun; but when I came out of the passage I could see nothing in the moonlight. The animal had noticed me, and had already disappeared. We did not altogether regret this, as we had no great desire to set to at the cold task of skinning now, in a wind, and with 39° (70.2° Fahr.) of frost.

There was not much variety in our life. It consisted in cooking and eating breakfast in the morning. Then, perhaps, came another nap, after which we would go out to get a little exercise. Of this, however, we took no more than was necessary, as our clothes, saturated as they were with fat, and worn and torn in many places, were not exactly adapted for remaining in the open air in winter. Our wind clothes, which we should have had outside as a protection against the wind, were so worn and torn that we could not use them; and we had so little thread to patch them with that I did not think we ought to use any of it until the spring, when we had to prepare for our start. I had counted on being able to make ourselves clothes of bearskins, but it took time to cleanse them from all blubber and fat, and it was even a slower business getting them dried. The only way to do this was to spread them out under the roof of the hut; but there was room for only one at a time. When at last one was ready we had, first of all, to use it on our bed, for we were lying on raw, greasy skins, which were gradually rotting. When our bed had been put in order with dried skins we had to think about making a sleeping-bag, as, after a time, the blanket-bag that we had got rather cold to sleep in. About Christmas-time, accordingly, we at last managed to make ourselves a bearskin bag. In this way all the skins we could prepare were used up, and we continued to wear the clothes we had throughout the winter.

These walks, too, were a doubtful pleasure, because there is always a wind there, and it blew hard under the steep cliff. We felt it a wonderful relief when it occasionally happened to be almost calm. As a rule, the wind howled above us and lashed the snow along, so that everything was wrapped in mist. Many days would sometimes pass almost without our putting our heads out of the passage, and it was only bare necessity that drove us out to fetch ice for drinking-water, or a leg or carcass of a bear for food, or some blubber for fuel. As a rule, we also brought in some sea-water ice, or, if there were an opening or a crack to be found, a little sea-water for our soup.

When we came in, and had mustered up appetite for another meal, we had to prepare supper, eat till we were satisfied, and then get into our bag and sleep as long as possible to pass the time. On the whole, we had quite a comfortable time in our hut. By means of our train-oil lamps we could keep the temperature in the middle of the room at about freezing-point. Near the wall, however, it was considerably colder, and there the damp deposited itself in the shape of beautiful hoar-frost crystals, so that the stones were quite white; and in happy moments we could dream that we dwelt in marble halls. This splendor, however, had its disadvantages, for when the outside temperature rose, or when we heated up the hut a little, rivulets ran down the wall into our sleeping-bag. We took turns at being cook, and Tuesday, when one ended his cooking-week and the other began, afforded on that account the one variation in our lives, and formed a boundary-mark by which we divided out our time. We always reckoned up how many cooking-weeks we had before we should break up our camp in the spring. I had hoped to get so much done this winter--work up my observations and notes, and write some of the account of our journey; but very little was done. It was not only the poor, flickering light of the oil-lamp which hindered me, nor yet the uncomfortable position--either lying on one's back, or sitting up and fidgeting about on the hard stones, while the part of the body thus exposed to pressure ached; but altogether these surroundings did not predispose one to work. The brain worked dully, and I never felt inclined to write anything. Perhaps, too, this was owing to the impossibility of keeping what you wrote upon clean; if you only took hold of a piece of paper your fingers left a dark-brown, greasy mark, and if a corner of your clothes brushed across it, a dark streak appeared. Our journals of this period look dreadful. They are "black books" in the literal sense of the term. Ah! how we longed for the time when we should once more be able to write on clean white paper and with black ink! I often had difficulty in reading the pencil notes I had written the day before, and now, in writing this book, it is all I can do to find out what was once written on these dirty, dark-brown pages. I expose them to all possible lights, I examine them with a magnifying-glass; but, notwithstanding, I often have to give it up.

The entries in my journal for this time are exceedingly meagre; there are sometimes weeks when there is nothing but the most necessary meteorological observations with remarks. The chief reason for this is that our life was so monotonous that there was nothing to write about. The same thoughts came and went day after day; there was no more variety in them than in our conversation. The very emptiness of the journal really gives the best representation of our life during the nine months we lived there.

"Wednesday, November 27th. -23° C. (9.4° below zero, Fahr.). It is windy weather, the snow whirling about your ears, directly you put your head out of the passage. Everything is gray; the black stones can be made out in the snow a little way up the beach, and above you can just divine the presence of the dark cliff; but wherever else the gaze is turned, out to sea or up the fjord, there is the same leaden darkness; one is shut out from the wide world, shut into one's self. The wind comes in sharp gusts, driving the snow before it; but up under the crest of the mountain it whistles and roars in the crevices and holes of the basaltic walls--the same never-ending song that it has sung through the thousands of years that are past, and will go on singing through thousands of years to come. And the snow whirls along in its age-old dance; it spreads itself in all the crevices and hollows, but it does not succeed in covering up the stones on the beach; black as ever, they project into the night. On the open space in front of the hut two figures are running up and down like shadows in the winter darkness to keep themselves warm, and so they will run up and down on the path they have trampled out, day after day, till the spring comes.

"Sunday, December 1st. Wonderfully beautiful weather for the last few days; one can never weary of going up and down outside, while the moon transforms the whole of this ice-world into a fairy-land. The hut is still in shadow under the mountain which hangs above it, dark and lowering; but the moonlight floats over ice and fjord, and is cast back glittering from every snowy ridge and hill. A weird beauty, without feeling, as though of a dead planet, built of shining white marble. Just so must the mountains stand there, frozen and icy cold; just so must the lakes lie congealed beneath their snowy covering; and now as ever the moon sails silently and slowly on her endless course through the lifeless space. And everything so still, so awfully still, with the silence that shall one day reign when the earth again becomes desolate and empty, when the fox will no more haunt these moraines, when the bear will no longer wander about on the ice out there, when even the wind will not rage--infinite silence! In the flaming aurora borealis the spirit of space hovers over the frozen waters. The soul bows down before the majesty of night and death.

"Monday, December 2d. Morning. To-day I can hear it blowing again outside, and we shall have an unpleasant walk. It is bitterly cold now in our worn, greasy clothes. It is not so bad when there is no wind; but even if there is only a little it goes right through one. But what does it matter? Will not the spring one day come here too? Yes; and over us arches the same heaven now as always, high and calm as ever; and as we walk up and down here shivering we gaze into the boundless starry space, and all our privations and sorrows shrink into nothingness. Starlit night, thou art sublimely beautiful! But dost thou not lend our spirit too mighty wings, greater than we can control? Couldst thou but solve the riddle of existence! We feel ourselves the centre of the universe, and struggle for life, for immortality--one seeking it here, another hereafter--while thy silent splendor proclaims: At the command of the Eternal, you came into existence on a paltry planet, as diminutive links in the endless chain of transformations; at another command, you will be wiped out again. Who then, through an eternity of eternities, will remember that there once was an ephemeral being who could bind sound and light in chains, and who was purblind enough to spend years of his brief existence in drifting through frozen seas? Is, then, the whole thing but the meteor of a moment? Will the whole history of the world evaporate like a dark, gold-edged cloud in the glow of evening--achieving nothing, leaving no trace, passing like a caprice?

"Evening. That fox is playing us a great many tricks; whatever he can move he goes off with. He has once gnawed off the band with which the door-skin is fastened, and every now and then we hear him at it again, and have to go out and knock on the roof of the passage. To-day he went off with one of our sails, in which our salt-water ice was lying. We were not a little alarmed when we went to fetch ice and found sail and all gone. We had no doubt as to who had been there, but we could not under any circumstances afford to lose our precious sail, on which we depended for our voyage to Spitzbergen in the spring, and we tramped about in the dark, up the beach, over the level, and down towards the sea. We looked everywhere, but nothing was to be seen of it. At last we had almost given it up when Johansen, in going on to the ice to get more salt-water ice, found it at the edge of the shore. Our joy was great; but it was wonderful that the fox had been able to drag that great sail, full of ice too, so far. Down there, however, it had come unfolded, and then he could do nothing with it. But what does he want with things like this? Is it to lie upon in his winter den? One would almost think so. I only wish I could come upon that den, and find the thermometer again, and the ball of twine, and the harpoon-line, and all the other precious things he has taken, the brute!

"Thursday, December 5th. It seems as if it would never end. But patience a little longer, and spring will come, the fairest spring that earth can give us. There is furious weather outside, and snow, and it is pleasant to lie here in our warm hut, eating steak, and listening to the wind raging over us.

"Tuesday, December 10th. It has been a bad wind. Johansen discovered to-day that his kayak had disappeared. After some search he found it again several hundred feet off, up the beach; it was a good deal knocked about, too. The wind must first have lifted it right over my kayak, and then over one big stone after another. It begins to be too much of a good thing when even the kayaks take to flying about in the air. The atmosphere is dark out over the sea, so the wind has probably broken up the ice, and driven it out, and there is open water once more. [63]

"Last night it all at once grew wonderfully calm, and the air was surprisingly mild. It was delightful to be out, and it is long since we have had such a long walk on our beat. It does one good to stretch one's legs now and then, otherwise I suppose we should become quite stiff here in our winter lair. Fancy, only 12° (21 1/2° Fahr.) of frost in the middle of December! We might almost imagine ourselves at home--forget that we were in a land of snow to the north of the eighty-first parallel.

"Thursday, December 12th. Between six and nine this morning there were a number of shooting-stars, most of them in Serpentarius. Some came right from the Great Bear; afterwards they chiefly came from the Bull, or Aldebaran, or the Pleiades. Several of them were very bright, and some drew a streak of shining dust after them. Lovely weather. But night and day are now equally dark. We walk up and down, up and down, on the level, in the darkness. Heaven only knows how many steps we shall take on that level before the winter ends. Through the gloom we could see faintly only the black cliffs, and the rocky ridges, and the great stones on the beach, which the wind always sweeps clean. Above us the sky, clear and brilliant with stars, sheds its peace over the earth; far in the west falls shower after shower of stars, some faint, scarcely visible, others bright like Roman candles, all with a message from distant worlds. Low in the south lies a bank of clouds, now and again outlined by the gleam of the northern lights; but out over the sea the sky is dark; there is open water there. It is quite pleasant to look at it; one does not feel so shut in; it is like a connecting link with life, that dark sea, the mighty artery of the world, which carries tidings from land to land, from people to people, on which civilization is borne victorious through the earth; next summer it will carry us home.

"Thursday, December 19th. -28.5°(19.3° below zero, Fahr.). It has turned cold again, and is bitter weather to be out in. But what does it signify? We are comfortable and warm in here, and do not need to go out more than we like. All the out-of-door work we have is to bring in fresh and salt water ice two or three times a week, meat and blubber now and again, and very occasionally a skin to dry under the roof. And Christmas, the season of rejoicing, is drawing near. At home, every one is busy now, scarcely knowing how to get time for everything; but here there is no bustle; all we want is to make the time pass. Ah, to sleep, sleep! The pot is simmering pleasantly over the hearth; I am sitting waiting for breakfast, and gazing into the flickering flames, while my thoughts travel far away. What is the strange power in fire and light that all created beings seek them, from the primary lump of protoplasm in the sea to the roving child of man, who stops in his wanderings, makes up a fire in the wood, and sits down to dismiss all care and revel in the crackling warmth. Involuntarily do these snake-like, fiery tongues arrest the eye; you gaze down into them as if you could read your fate there, and memories glide past in motley train. What, then, is privation? What the present? Forget it, forget yourself; you have the power to recall all that is beautiful, and then wait for the summer.... By the light of the lamp she sits sewing in the winter evening. Beside her stands a little maiden with blue eyes and golden hair, playing with a doll. She looks tenderly at the child and strokes her hair; but her eyes fill, and the big tears fall upon her work.

"Johansen is lying beside me asleep; he smiles in his sleep. Poor fellow! he must be dreaming he is at home at Christmas-time with those he loves. But sleep on--sleep and dream, while the winter passes; for then comes spring--the spring of life!

"Sunday, December 22d. Walked about outside for a long time yesterday evening, while Johansen was having a thorough clearing in the hut in preparation for Christmas. This consisted chiefly in scraping the ashes out of the hearth, gathering up the refuse of bone and meat, and throwing it away, and then breaking up the ice which has frozen together with all kinds of rubbish and refuse into a thick layer upon the floor, making the hut rather low in the roof.

"The northern lights were wonderful. However often we see this weird play of light, we never tire of gazing at it; it seems to cast a spell over both sight and sense till it is impossible to tear one's self away. It begins to dawn with a pale, yellow, spectral light behind the mountain in the east, like the reflection of a fire far away. It broadens, and soon the whole of the eastern sky is one glowing mass of fire. Now it fades again, and gathers in a brightly luminous belt of mist stretching towards the southwest, with only a few patches of luminous haze visible here and there. After a while scattered rays suddenly shoot up from the fiery mist, almost reaching to the zenith; then more; they play over the belt in a wild chase from east to west. They seem to be always darting nearer from a long, long way off. But suddenly a perfect veil of rays showers from the zenith out over the northern sky; they are so fine and bright, like the finest of glittering silver threads. Is it the fire-giant Surt himself, striking his mighty silver harp, so that the strings tremble and sparkle in the glow of the flames of Muspellsheim? Yes, it is harp music, wildly storming in the darkness; it is the riotous war-dance of Surt's sons. And again at times it is like softly playing, gently rocking, silvery waves, on which dreams travel into unknown worlds.

"The winter solstice has come, and the sun is at its lowest; but still at midday we can just see a faint glimmer of it over the ridges in the south. Now it is again beginning to mount northward; day by day it will grow lighter and lighter, and the time will pass rapidly. Oh, how well I can now understand our forefathers' old custom of holding an uproarious sacrificial banquet in the middle of winter, when the power of the winter darkness was broken. We would hold an uproarious feast here if we had anything to feast with; but we have nothing. What need is there, either? We shall hold our silent festival in the spirit, and think of the spring.

"In my walk I look at Jupiter over there above the crest of the mountain--Jupiter, the planet of the home; it seems to smile at us, and I recognize my good attendant spirit. Am I superstitious? This life and this scenery might well make one so; and, in fact, is not every one superstitious, each in his own way? Have not I a firm belief in my star, and that we shall meet again? It has scarcely forsaken me for a day. Death, I believe, can never approach before one's mission is accomplished--never comes without one feeling its proximity; and yet a cold fate may one day cut the thread without warning.

"Tuesday, December 24th. At 2 P.M. to-day -24° C. (11.2° below zero, Fahr.). And this is Christmas-eve--cold and windy out-of-doors, and cold and draughty indoors. How desolate it is! Never before have we had such a Christmas-eve.

"At home the bells are now ringing Christmas in. I can hear their sound as it swings through the air from the church tower. How beautiful it is!

"Now the candles are being lighted on the Christmas-trees, the children are let in and dance round in joyous delight. I must have a Christmas party for children when I get home. This is the time of rejoicing, and there is feasting in every cottage at home. And we are keeping the festival in our little way. Johansen has turned his shirt and put the outside shirt next him; I have done the same, and then I have changed my drawers, and put on the others that I had wrung out in warm water. And I have washed myself, too, in a quarter of a cup of warm water, with the discarded drawers as sponge and towel. Now I feel quite another being; my clothes do not stick to my body as much as they did. Then for supper we had 'fiskegratin,' made of powdered fish and maize-meal, with train-oil to it instead of butter, both fried and boiled (one as dry as the other), and for dessert we had bread fried in train-oil. To-morrow morning we are going to have chocolate and bread." [64]

"Wednesday, December 25th. We have got lovely Christmas weather, hardly any wind, and such bright, beautiful moonlight. It gives one quite a solemn feeling. It is the peace of thousands of years. In the afternoon the northern lights were exceptionally beautiful. When I came out at 6 o'clock there was a bright, pale-yellow bow in the southern sky. It remained for a long time almost unchanged, and then began to grow much brighter at the upper margin of the bow behind the mountain crests in the east. It smouldered for some time, and then all at once light darted out westward along the bow; streamers shot up all along it towards the zenith, and in an instant the whole of the southern sky from the arc to the zenith was aflame. It flickered and blazed, it whirled round like a whirlwind (moving with the sun), rays darted backward and forward, now red and reddish-violet, now yellow, green, and dazzling white; now the rays were red at the bottom and yellow and green farther up, and then again this order was inverted. Higher and higher it rose; now it came on the north side of the zenith too; for a moment there was a splendid corona, and then it all became one whirling mass of fire up there; it was like a whirlpool of fire in red, yellow, and green, and the eye was dazzled with looking at it. It then drew across to the northern sky, where it remained a long time, but not in such brilliancy. The arc from which it had sprung in the south was still visible, but soon disappeared. The movement of the rays was chiefly from west to east, but sometimes the reverse. It afterwards flared up brightly several times in the northern sky; I counted as many as six parallel bands at one time, but they did not attain to the brightness of the former ones.

"And this is Christmas-day! There are family dinners going on at home. I can see the dignified old father standing smiling and happy in the doorway to welcome children and grandchildren. Out-of-doors the snow is falling softly and silently in big flakes; the young folk come rushing in fresh and rosy, stamp the snow off their feet in the passage, shake their things and hang them up, and then enter the drawing-room, where the fire is crackling comfortably and cozily in the stove, and they can see the snowflakes falling outside and covering the Christmas corn-sheaf. A delicious smell of roasting comes from the kitchen, and in the dining-room the long table is laid for a good, old-fashioned dinner with good old wine. How nice and comfortable everything is! One might fall ill with longing to be home. But wait, wait; when summer comes....

"Oh, the road to the stars is both long and difficult!

"Tuesday, December 31st. And this year too is vanishing. It has been strange, but, after all, it has perhaps not been so bad.

"They are ringing out the old year now at home. Our church-bell is the icy wind howling over glacier and snow-field, howling fiercely as it whirls the drifting snow on high in cloud after cloud, and sweeps it down upon us from the crest of the mountain up yonder. Far in up the fjord you can see the clouds of snow chasing one another over the ice in front of the gusts of wind, and the snow-dust glittering in the moonlight. And the full moon sails silent and still out of one year into another. She shines alike upon the good and the evil, nor does she notice the wants and yearnings of the new year. Solitary, forsaken, hundreds of miles from all that one holds dear; but the thoughts flit restlessly to and fro on their silent paths. Once more a leaf is turned in the book of eternity, a new blank page is opened, and no one knows what will be written on it."