Farthest North Volume I Part 14

"Wednesday, January 3d. The old lane about 1300 feet ahead of the Fram has opened again--a large rift, with a coating of ice and rime. As soon as ice is formed in this temperature the frost forces it to throw out its salinity on the surface, and this itself freezes into pretty salt flowers, resembling h.o.a.r-frost. The temperature is between 38 Fahr. and 40 Fahr. below zero (-39 C. to -40 C), but when there is added to this a biting wind, with a velocity of from 9 to 16 feet per second, it must be allowed that it is rather 'cool in the shade.'

"Sverdrup and I agreed to-day that the Christmas holidays had better stop now and the usual life begin again; too much idleness is not good for us. It cannot be called a full nor a complicated one, this life of ours; but it has one advantage, that we are all satisfied with it, such as it is.

"They are still working in the engine-room, but expect to finish what they are doing to the boiler in a few days, and then all is done there. Then the turning-lathe is to be set up in the hold, and tools for it have to be forged. There is often a job for Smith Lars, and then the forge flames forward by the forecastle, and sends its red glow on to the rime-covered rigging, and farther up into the starry night, and out over the waste of ice. From far off you can hear the strokes on the anvil ringing through the silent night. When one is wandering alone out there, and the well-known sound reaches one's ear, and one sees the red glow, memory recalls less solitary scenes. While one stands gazing, perhaps a light moves along the deck and slowly up the rigging. It is Johansen on his way up to the crow's-nest to read the temperature. Blessing is at present engaged in counting blood corpuscles again, and estimating amounts of haemoglobin. For this purpose he draws blood every month from every mother's son of us, the bloodthirsty dog, with supreme contempt for all the outcry against vivisection. Hansen and his a.s.sistant take observations. The meteorological ones, which are taken every four hours, are Johansen's special department. First he reads the thermometer, hygrometer, and thermograph on deck (they were afterwards kept on the ice); next the barometer, barograph, and thermometer in the saloon; and then the minimum and maximum thermometers in the crow's-nest (this to take the record of the temperature of a higher air stratum). Then he goes to read the thermometers that are kept on the ice to measure the radiations from its surface, and perhaps down to the hold, too, to see what the temperature is there. Every second day, as a rule, astronomical observations are taken, to decide our whereabouts and keep us up to date in the crab's progress we are making. Taking these observations with the thermometer between 22 Fahr. and 40 Fahr. below zero (-30 C. to -40 C.) is a very mixed pleasure. Standing still on deck working with these fine instruments, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g in metal screws with one's bare fingers, is not altogether agreeable. It often happens that they must slap their arms about and tramp hard up and down the deck. They are received with shouts of laughter when they reappear in the saloon after the performance of one of these thundering n.i.g.g.e.r break-downs above our heads that has shaken the whole ship. We ask innocently if it was cold on deck. 'Not the very least,' says Hansen; 'just a pleasant temperature.' 'And your feet are not cold now?' 'No, I can't say that they are, but one's fingers get a little cold sometimes.' Two of his had just been frost-bitten; but he refused to wear one of the wolf-skin suits which I had given out for the meteorologists. 'It is too mild for that yet; and it does not do to pamper one's self,' he says.

"I believe it was when the thermometer stood at 40 below zero that Hansen rushed up on deck one morning in shirt and drawers to take an observation. He said he had not time to get on his clothes.

"At certain intervals they also take magnetic observations on the ice, these two. I watch them standing there with lanterns, bending over their instruments; and presently I see them tearing away over the floe, their arms swinging like the sails of the windmill when there is a wind pressure of 32 to 39 feet--but 'it is not at all cold.' I cannot help thinking of what I have read in the accounts of some of the earlier expeditions--namely, that at such temperatures it was impossible to take observations. It would take worse than this to make these fellows give in. In the intervals between their observations and calculations I hear a murmuring in Hansen's cabin, which means that the princ.i.p.al is at present occupied in inflicting a dose of astronomy or navigation upon his a.s.sistant.

"It is something dreadful the amount of card-playing that goes on in the saloon in the evenings now; the gaming demon is abroad far into the night; even our model Sverdrup is possessed by him. They have not yet played the shirts off their backs, but some of them have literally played the bread out of their mouths; two poor wretches have had to go without fresh bread for a whole month because they had forfeited their rations of it to their opponents. But, all the same, this card-playing is a healthy, harmless recreation, giving occasion for much laughter, fun, and pleasure.

"An Irish proverb says, 'Be happy; and if you cannot be happy, be careless; and if you cannot be careless, be as careless as you can.' This is good philosophy, which--no, what need of proverbs here, where life is happy! It was in all sincerity that Amundsen burst out yesterday with, 'Yes, isn't it just as I say, that we are the luckiest men on earth that can live up here where we have no cares, get everything given us without needing to trouble about it, and are well off in every possible way?' Hansen agreed that it certainly was a life without care. Juell said much the same a little ago; what seems to please him most is that there are no summonses here, no creditors, no bills. And I? Yes, I am happy too. It is an easy life; nothing that weighs heavy on one, no letters, no newspapers, nothing disturbing; just that monastic, out-of-the-world existence that was my dream when I was younger and yearned for quietness in which to give myself up to my studies. Longing, even when it is strong and sad, is not unhappiness. A man has truly no right to be anything but happy when fate permits him to follow up his ideals, exempting him from the wearing strain of every-day cares, that he may with clearer vision strive towards a lofty goal.

"'Where there is work, success will follow,' said a poet of the land of work. I am working as hard as I can, so I suppose success will pay me a visit by-and-by. I am lying on the sofa, reading about Kane's misfortunes, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes. Truth obliges me to confess that I have become addicted to the vice I condemn so strongly--but flesh is gra.s.s; so I blow the smoke clouds into the air and dream sweet dreams. It is hard work, but I must do the best I can.

"Thursday, January 4th. It seems as if the twilight were increasing quite perceptibly now, but this is very possibly only imagination. I am in good spirits in spite of the fact that we are drifting south again. After all, what does it matter? Perhaps the gain to science will be as great, and, after all, I suppose this desire to reach the North Pole is only a piece of vanity. I have now a very good idea of what it must be like up there. ('I like that!' say you.) Our deep water here is connected with, is a part of, the deep water of the Atlantic Ocean--of this there can be no doubt. And have not I found that things go exactly as I calculated they would whenever we get a favorable wind? Have not many before us had to wait for wind? And as to vanity--that is a child's disease, got over long ago. All calculations, with but one exception, have proved correct. We made our way along the coast of Asia, which many prophesied we should have great difficulty in doing. We were able to sail farther north than I had dared to hope for in my boldest moments, and in just the longitude I wished. We are closed in by the ice, also as I wished. The Fram has borne the ice-pressure splendidly, and allows herself to be lifted by it without so much as creaking, in spite of being more heavily loaded with coal, and drawing more water than we reckoned on when we made our calculations; and this after her certain destruction and ours was prophesied by those most experienced in such matters. I have not found the ice higher nor heavier than I expected it to be; and the comfort, warmth, and good ventilation on board are far beyond my expectations. Nothing is wanting in our equipment, and the food is quite exceptionally good. As Blessing and I agreed a few days ago, it is as good as at home; there is not a thing we long for; not even the thought of a beefsteak a la Chateaubriand, or a pork cutlet with mushrooms and a bottle of Burgundy, can make our mouths water; we simply don't care about such things. The preparations for the expedition cost me several years of precious life; but now I do not grudge them: my object is attained. On the drifting ice we live a winter life, not only in every respect better than that of previous expeditions, but actually as if we had brought a bit of Norway, of Europe, with us. We are as well off as if we were at home. All together in one saloon, with everything in common, we are a little part of the fatherland, and daily we draw closer and closer together. In one point only have my calculations proved incorrect, but unfortunately in one of the most important. I presupposed a shallow Polar Sea, the greatest depth known in these regions up till now being 80 fathoms, found by the Jeannette. I reasoned that all currents would have a strong influence in the shallow Polar Sea, and that on the Asiatic side the current of the Siberian rivers would be strong enough to drive the ice a good way north. But here I already find a depth which we cannot measure with all our line, a depth of certainly 1000 fathoms, and possibly double that. This at once upsets all faith in the operation of a current; we find either none, or an extremely slight one; my only trust now is in the winds. Columbus discovered America by means of a mistaken calculation, and even that not his own; heaven only knows where my mistake will lead us. Only I repeat once more--the Siberian driftwood on the coast of Greenland cannot lie, and the way it went we must go.

"Monday, January 8th. Little Liv is a year old to-day; it will be a fete day at home. As I was lying on the sofa reading after dinner, Peter put his head in at the door and asked me to come up and look at a strange star which had just shown itself above the horizon, shining like a beacon flame. I got quite a start when I came on deck and saw a strong red light just above the edge of the ice in the south. It twinkled and changed color; it looked just as if some one were coming carrying a lantern over the ice; I actually believe that for a moment I so far forgot our surroundings as to think that it really was some person approaching from the south. It was Venus, which we see to-day for the first time, as it has till now been beneath the horizon. It is beautiful with its red light. Curious that it should happen to come to-day. It must be Liv's star, as Jupiter is the home star. And Liv's birthday is a lucky day--we are on our way north again. According to observations we are certainly north of 79 north lat.i.tude. On the home day, September 6th, the favorable wind began to blow that carried us along the coast of Asia; perhaps Liv's day has brought us into a good current, and we are making the real start for the north under her star.

"Friday, January 12th. There was pressure about 10 o'clock this morning in the opening forward, but I could see no movement when I was there a little later. I followed the opening some way to the north. It is pretty cold work walking with the thermometer at 40 Fahr. below zero, and the wind blowing with a velocity of 16 feet per second straight in your face. But now we are certainly drifting fast to the north under Liv's star. After all, it is not quite indifferent to me whether we are going north or south. When the drift is northward new life seems to come into me, and hope, the ever-young, springs fresh and green from under the winter snow. I see the way open before me, and I see the home-coming in the distance--too great happiness to believe in.

"Sunday, January 14th. Sunday again. The time is pa.s.sing almost quickly, and there is more light every day. There was great excitement to-day when yesterday evening's observations were being calculated. All guessed that we had come a long way north again. Several thought to 79 18' or 20'. Others, I believe, insisted on 80. The calculation places us in 79 19' north lat.i.tude, 137 31' east longitude. A good step onward. Yesterday the ice was quiet, but this morning there was considerable pressure in several places. Goodness knows what is causing it just now; it is a whole week after new moon. I took a long walk to the southwest, and got right in among it. Packing began where I stood, with roars and thunders below me and on every side. I jumped, and ran like a hare, as if I had never heard such a thing before; it came so unexpectedly. The ice was curiously flat there to the south; the farther I went the flatter it grew, with excellent sledging surface. Over such ice one could drive many miles a day.

"Monday, January 15th. There was pressure forward both this morning and towards noon, but we heard the loudest sounds from the north. Sverdrup, Mogstad, and Peter went in that direction and were stopped by a large, open channel. Peter and I afterwards walked a long distance N.N.E., past a large opening that I had skirted before Christmas. It was shining, flat ice, splendid for sledging on, always better the farther north we went. The longer I wander about and see this sort of ice in all directions, the more strongly does a plan take hold of me that I have long had in my mind. It would be possible to get with dogs and sledges over this ice to the Pole, if one left the ship for good and made one's way back in the direction of Franz Josef Land, Spitzbergen, or the west coast of Greenland. It might almost be called an easy expedition for two men.

"But it would be too hasty to go off in spring. We must first see what kind of drift the summer brings. And as I think over it, I feel doubtful if it would be right to go off and leave the others. Imagine if I came home and they did not! Yet it was to explore the unknown polar regions that I came; it was for that the Norwegian people gave their money; and surely my first duty is to do that if I can. I must give the drift plan a longer trial yet; but if it takes us in a wrong direction, then there is nothing for it but to try the other, come what may.

"Tuesday, January 16th. The ice is quiet to-day. Does longing stupefy one, or does it wear itself out and turn at last into stolidity? Oh that burning longing night and day were happiness! But now its fire has turned to ice. Why does home seem so far away? It is one's all; life without it is so empty, so empty--nothing but dead emptiness. Is it the restlessness of spring that is beginning to come over one?--the desire for action, for something different from this indolent, enervating life? Is the soul of man nothing but a succession of moods and feelings, shifting as incalculably as the changing winds? Perhaps my brain is over-tired; day and night my thoughts have turned on the one point, the possibility of reaching the Pole and getting home. Perhaps it is rest I need--to sleep, sleep! Am I afraid of venturing my life? No, it cannot be that. But what else, then, can be keeping me back? Perhaps a secret doubt of the practicability of the plan. My mind is confused; the whole thing has got into a tangle; I am a riddle to myself. I am worn out, and yet I do not feel any special tiredness. Is it perhaps because I sat up reading last night? Everything around is emptiness, and my brain is a blank. I look at the home pictures and am moved by them in a curious, dull way; I look into the future, and feel as if it does not much matter to me whether I get home in the autumn of this year or next. So long as I get home in the end, a year or two seem almost nothing. I have never thought this before. I have no inclination to read, nor to draw, nor to do anything else whatever. Folly! Shall I try a few pages of Schopenhauer? No, I will go to bed, though I am not sleepy. Perhaps, if the truth were known, I am longing now more than ever. The only thing that helps me is writing, trying to express myself on these pages, and then looking at myself, as it were, from the outside. Yes, man's life is nothing but a succession of moods, half memory and half hope.

"Thursday, January 18th. The wind that began yesterday has gone on blowing all to-day with a velocity of 16 to 19 feet per second, from S.S.E., S.E., and E.S.E. It has no doubt helped us on a good way north; but it seems to be going down; now, about midnight, it has sunk to 4 metres; and the barometer, which has been rising all the time, has suddenly begun to fall; let us hope that it is not a cyclone pa.s.sing over us, bringing northerly wind. It is curious that there is almost always a rise of the thermometer with these stronger winds; to-day it rose to 13 Fahr. below zero (-25 C). A south wind of less velocity generally lowers the temperature, and a moderate north wind raises it. Payer's explanation of this raising of the temperature by strong winds is that the wind is warmed by pa.s.sing over large openings in the ice. This can hardly be correct, at any rate in our case, for we have few or no openings. I am rather inclined to believe that the rise is produced by air from higher strata being brought down to the surface of the earth. It is certain that the higher air is warmer than the lower, which comes into contact with snow and ice surfaces cooled by radiation. Our observations go to prove that such is the case. Add to this that the air in its fall is heated by the rising pressure. A strong wind, even if it does not come from the higher strata of the atmosphere, must necessarily make some confusion in the mutual position of the various strata, mixing the higher with those below them, and vice versa.

"I had a strange dream last night. I had got home. I can still feel something of the trembling joy, mixed with fear, with which I neared land and the first telegraph station. I had carried out my plan; we had reached the North Pole on sledges, and then got down to Franz Josef Land. I had seen nothing but drift-ice; and when people asked what it was like up there, and how we knew we had been to the Pole, I had no answer to give; I had forgotten to take accurate observations, and now began to feel that this had been stupid of me. It is very curious that I had an exactly similar dream when we were drifting on the ice-floes along the east coast of Greenland, and thought that we were being carried farther and farther from our destination. Then I dreamed that I had reached home after crossing Greenland on the ice; but that I was ashamed because I could give no account of what I had seen on the way--I had forgotten everything. Is there not a lucky omen in the resemblance between these two dreams? I attained my aim the first time, bad as things looked; shall I not do so this time too? If I were superst.i.tious I should feel surer of it; but, even though I am not at all superst.i.tious, I have a firm conviction that our enterprise must be successful. This belief is not merely the result of the last two days' south wind; something within me says that we shall succeed. I laugh now at myself for having been weak enough to doubt it. I can spend hours staring into the light, dreaming of how, when we land, I shall grope my way to the first telegraph station, trembling with emotion and suspense. I write out telegram after telegram; I ask the clerk if he can give me any news from home.

"Friday, January 19th. Splendid wind, with velocity of 13 to 19 feet per second; we are going north at a grand rate. The red, glowing twilight is now so bright about midday that if we were in more southern lat.i.tudes we should expect to see the sun rise bright and glorious above the horizon in a few minutes; but we shall have to wait a month yet for that.

"Sat.u.r.day, January 20th. I had about 600 pounds of pemmican and 200 pounds of bread brought up from the hold to-day and stowed on the forecastle. It is wrong not to have some provisions on deck against any sudden emergency, such as fire.

"Sunday, January 21st. We took a long excursion to the northwest; the ice in that direction, too, was tolerably flat. Sverdrup and I got on the top of a high-pressure mound at some distance from here. It was in the centre of what had been very violent packing, but, all the same, the wall at its highest was not over 17 feet, and this was one of the highest and biggest altogether that I have seen yet. An alt.i.tude of the moon taken this evening showed us to be in 79 35' north lat.i.tude--exactly what I had thought. We are so accustomed now to calculating our drift by the wind that we are able to tell pretty nearly where we are. This is a good step northward, if we could take many more such. In honor of the King's birthday we have a treat of figs, raisins, and almonds.

"Tuesday, January 23d. When I came on deck this morning 'Caiaphas'

was sitting out on the ice on the port quarter, barking incessantly to the east. I knew there must be something there, and went off with a revolver, Sverdrup following with one also. When I got near the dog he came to meet me, always wriggling his head round to the east and barking; then he ran on before us in that direction; it was plain that there was some animal there, and of course it could only be a bear. The full moon stood low and red in the north, and sent its feeble light obliquely across the broken ice-surface. I looked out sharply in all directions over the hummocks, which cast long, many-shaped shadows; but I could distinguish nothing in this confusion. We went on, 'Caiaphas'

first, growling and barking and p.r.i.c.king his ears, and I after him, expecting every moment to see a bear loom up in front of us. Our course was eastward along the opening. The dog presently began to go more cautiously and straighter forward; then he stopped making any noise except a low growl--we were evidently drawing near. I mounted a hummock to look about, and caught sight among the blocks of ice of something dark, which seemed to be coming towards us. 'There comes a black dog,' I called. 'No, it is a bear,' said Sverdrup, who was more to the side of it and could see better. I saw now, too, that it was a large animal, and that it had only been its head that I had taken for a dog. It was not unlike a bear in its movements, but it seemed to me remarkably dark in color. I pulled the revolver out of the holster and rushed forward to empty all its barrels into the creature's head. When I was just a few paces from it, and preparing to shoot, it raised its head and I saw that it was a walrus, and that same moment it threw itself sideways into the water. There we stood. To shoot at such a fellow with a revolver would be of as much use as squirting water at a goose. The great black head showed again immediately in a strip of moonlight on the dark water. The animal took a long look at us, disappeared for a little, appeared again nearer, bobbed up and down, blew, lay with its head under water, shoved itself over towards us, raised its head again. It was enough to drive one mad; if we had only had a harpoon I could easily have stuck it into its back. Yes, if we had had--and back to the Fram we ran as fast as our legs would carry us to get harpoon and rifle. But the harpoon and line were stored away, and were not to be had at once. Who could have guessed that they would be needed here? The harpoon point had to be sharpened, and all this took time. And for all our searching afterwards east and west along the opening, no walrus was to be found. Goodness knows where it had gone, as there are hardly any openings in the ice for a long distance round. Sverdrup and I vainly fret over not having known at once what kind of animal it was, for if we had only guessed we should have him now. But who expects to meet a walrus on close ice in the middle of a wild sea of a thousand fathoms depth, and that in the heart of winter? None of us ever heard of such a thing before; it is a perfect mystery. As I thought we might have come upon shoals or into the neighborhood of land, I had soundings taken in the afternoon with 130 fathoms (240 metres) of line, but no bottom was found.

"By yesterday's observations we are in 79 41' north lat.i.tude and 135 29' east longitude. That is good progress north, and it does not much matter that we have been taken a little west. The clouds are driving this evening before a strong south wind, so we shall likely be going before it soon too; in the meantime there is a breeze from the south so slight that you hardly feel it.

"The opening on our stern lies almost east and west. We could see no end to it westward when we went after the walrus; and Mogstad and Peter had gone three miles east, and it was as broad as ever there.

"Wednesday, January 24th. At supper this evening Peter told some of his remarkable Spitzbergen stories--about his comrade Andreas Bek. 'Well, you see, it was up about Dutchman's Island, or Amsterdam Island, that Andreas Bek and I were on sh.o.r.e and got in among all the graves. We thought we'd like to see what was in them, so we broke up some of the coffins, and there they lay. Some of them had still flesh on their jaws and noses, and some of them still had their caps on their heads. Andreas, he was a devil of a fellow, you see, and he broke up the coffins and got hold of the skulls, and rolled them about here and there. Some of them he set up for targets and shot at. Then he wanted to see if there was marrow left in their bones, so he took and broke a thigh-bone--and, sure enough, there was marrow; he took and picked it out with a wooden pin.'

"'How could he do a thing like that?'

"'Oh, it was only a Dutchman, you know. But he had a bad dream that night, had Andreas. All the dead men came to fetch him, and he ran from them and got right out on the bowsprit, and there he sat and yelled, while the dead men stood on the forecastle. And the one with his broken thigh-bone in his hand was foremost, and he came crawling out, and wanted Andreas to put it together again. But just then he wakened. We were lying in the same berth, you see, Andreas and me, and I sat up in the berth and laughed, listening to him yelling. I wouldn't waken him, not I. I thought it was fun to hear him getting paid out a little.'

"'It was bad of you, Peter, to have any part in that horrid plundering of dead bodies.'

"'Oh, I never did anything to them, you know. Just once I broke up a coffin to get wood to make a fire for our coffee; but when we opened it the body just fell to pieces. But it was juicy wood, that, better to burn than the best fir-roots--such a fire as it made!'

"One of the others now remarked, 'Wasn't it the devil that used a skull for his coffee-cup?'

"'Well, he hadn't anything else, you see, and he just happened to find one. There was no harm in that, was there?'

"Then Jacobsen began to hold forth: 'It's not at all such an uncommon thing to use skulls for shooting at, either because people fancy them for targets, or because of some other reason; they shoot in through the eyeholes,' etc., etc.

"I asked Peter about 'Tobiesen's' coffin--if it had ever been dug up to find out if it was true that his men had killed him and his son.

"'No, that one has never been dug up.'

"'I sailed past there last year,' begins Jacobsen again; 'I didn't go ash.o.r.e, but it seems to me that I heard that it had been dug up.'

"'That's just rubbish; it has never been dug up.'

"'Well,' said I, 'it seems to me that I've heard something about it too; I believe it was here on board, and I am very much mistaken if it was not yourself that said it, Peter.'

"'No, I never said that. All I said was that a man once struck a walrus-spear through the coffin, and it's sticking there yet.'

"'What did he do that for?'

"'Oh, just because he wanted to know if there was anything in the coffin; and yet he didn't want to open it, you know. But let him lie in peace now.'"

"Friday January 26th. Peter and I went eastward along the opening this morning for about seven miles, and we saw where it ends, in some old pressure-ridges; its whole length is over seven miles. Movement in the ice began on our way home; indeed, there was pretty strong pressure all the time. As we were walking on the new ice in the opening it rose in furrows or cracked under our feet. Then it raised itself up into two high walls, between which we walked as if along a street, amidst unceasing noises, sometimes howling and whining like a dog complaining of the cold, sometimes a roar like the thunder of a great waterfall. We were often obliged to take refuge on the old ice, either because we came to open water with a confusion of floating blocks, or because the line of the packing had gone straight across the opening, and there was a wall in front of us like a high frozen wave. It seemed as if the ice on the south side of the opening where the Fram is lying were moving east, or else that on the north side was moving west; for the floes on the two sides slanted in towards each other in these directions. We saw tracks of a little bear which had trotted along the opening the day before. Unfortunately it had gone off southwest, and we had small hope, with this steady south wind, of its getting scent of the ship and coming to fetch a little of the flesh on board.

"Sat.u.r.day, January 27th. The days are turning distinctly lighter now. We can just see to read Verdens Gang [45] about midday. At that time to-day Sverdrup thought he saw land far astern; it was dark and irregular, in some places high; he fancied that it might be only an appearance of clouds. When I returned from a walk, about 1 o'clock, I went up to look, but saw only piled-up ice. Perhaps this was the same as he saw, or possibly I was too late. (It turned out next day to be only an optical illusion.) Severe pressure has been going on this evening. It began at 7.30 astern in the opening, and went on steadily for two hours. It sounded as if a roaring waterfall were rushing down upon us with a force that nothing could resist. One heard the big floes crashing and breaking against each other. They were flung and pressed up into high walls, which must now stretch along the whole opening east and west, for one hears the roar the whole way. It is coming nearer just now; the ship is getting violent shocks; it is like waves in the ice. They come on us from behind, and move forward. We stare out into the night, but can see nothing, for it is pitch-dark. Now I hear cracking and shifting in the hummock on the starboard quarter; it gets louder and stronger, and extends steadily. At last the waterfall roar abates a little. It becomes more unequal; there is a longer interval between each shock. I am so cold that I creep below.

"But no sooner have I seated myself to write than the ship begins to heave and tremble again, and I hear through her sides the roar of the packing. As the bear-trap may be in danger, three men go off to see to it, but they find that there is a distance of 50 paces between the new pressure-ridge and the wire by which the trap is secured, so they leave it as it is. The pressure-ridge was an ugly sight, they say, but they could distinguish nothing well in the dark.

"Most violent pressure is beginning again. I must go on deck and look at it. The loud roar meets one as one opens the door. It is coming from the bow now, as well as from the stern. It is clear that pressure-ridges are being thrown up in both openings, so if they reach us we shall be taken by both ends and lifted lightly and gently out of the water. There is pressure near us on all sides. Creaking has begun in the old hummock on the port quarter; it is getting louder, and, so far as I can see, the hummock is slowly rising. A lane has opened right across the large floe on the port side; you can see the water, dark as it is. Now both pressure and noise get worse and worse; the ship shakes, and I feel as if I myself were being gently lifted with the stern-rail, where I stand gazing out at the welter of ice-ma.s.ses that resemble giant snakes writhing and twisting their great bodies out there under the quiet, starry sky, whose peace is only broken by one aurora serpent waving and flickering restlessly in the northeast. I once more think what a comfort it is to be safe on board the Fram, and look out with a certain contempt at the horrible hurly-burly Nature is raising to no purpose whatever; it will not crush us in a hurry, nor even frighten us. Suddenly I remember that my fine thermometer is in a hole on a floe to port on the other side of the opening, and must certainly be in danger. I jump on to the ice, find a place where I can leap across the opening, and grope about in the dark until I find the piece of ice covering the hole; I get hold of the string, and the thermometer is saved. I hurry on board again well pleased, and down into my comfortable cabin to smoke a pipe of peace--alas! this vice grows upon me more and more--and to listen with glee to the roar of the pressure outside and feel its shakings, like so many earthquakes, as I sit and write my diary. Safe and comfortable, I cannot but think with deep pity of the many who have had to stand by on deck in readiness to leave their frail vessels on the occurrence of any such pressure. The poor Tegethoff fellows--they had a bad time of it, and yet theirs was a good ship in comparison with many of the others. It is now 11.30, and the noise outside seems to be subsiding.

"It is remarkable that we should have this strong pressure just now, with the moon in its last quarter and neap tide. This does not agree with our previous experiences; no more does the fact that the pressure the day before yesterday was from 12 A.M. to about 2 P.M., and then again at 2 A.M., and now we have had it from 7.30 to 10.30 P.M. Can land have something to do with it here, after all? The temperature to-day is 42 Fahr. below zero (-41.4 C), but there is no wind, and we have not had such pleasant weather for walking for a long time; it feels almost mild here when the air is still.

"No, that was not the end of the pressure. When I was on deck at a quarter to twelve roaring and trembling began again in the ice forward on the port quarter; then suddenly came one loud boom after another, sounding out in the distance, and the ship gave a start; there was again a little pressure, and after that quietness. Faint aurora borealis.

"Sunday, January 28th. Strange to say, there has been no pressure since 12 o'clock last night; the ice seems perfectly quiet. The pressure-ridge astern showed what violent packing yesterday's was; in one place its height was 18 or 19 feet above the surface of the water; floe-ice 8 feet thick was broken, pressed up in square blocks, and crushed to pieces. At one point a huge monolith of such floe-ice rose high into the air. Beyond this pressure-wall there was no great disturbance to be detected. There had been a little packing here and there, and the floe to port had four or five large cracks across it, which no doubt accounted for the explosions I heard last night. The ice to starboard was also cracked in several places. The pressure had evidently come from the north or N.N.E. The ridge behind us is one of the highest I have seen yet. I believe that if the Fram had been lying there she would have been lifted right out of the water. I walked for some distance in a northeasterly direction, but saw no signs of pressure there.

"Another Sunday. It is wonderful that the time can pa.s.s so quickly as it does. For one thing we are in better spirits, knowing that we are drifting steadily north. A rough estimate of to-day's observation gives 79 50' north lat.i.tude. That is not much since Monday; but then yesterday and to-day there has been almost no wind at all, and the other days it has been very light--only once or twice with as much as 9 feet velocity, the rest of the time 3 and 6.

"A remarkable event happened yesterday afternoon: I got Munthe's picture of the 'Three Princesses' fastened firmly on the wall. It is a thing that we have been going to do ever since we left Christiania, but we have never been able to summon up energy for such a heavy undertaking--it meant knocking in four nails--and the picture has amused itself by constantly falling and guillotining whoever happened to be sitting on the sofa below it.

"Tuesday, January 30th. 79 49' north lat.i.tude, 134 57' east longitude, is the tale told by this afternoon's observations, while by Sunday afternoon's we were in 79 50' north lat.i.tude, and 133 23'