Volume 1

Chapter III
The Start

It was midsummer day. A dull, gloomy day; and with it came the inevitable leave-taking. The door closed behind me. For the last time I left my home and went alone down the garden to the beach, where the Fram’s little petroleum launch pitilessly awaited me. Behind me lay all I held dear in life. And what before me? How many years would pass ere I should see it all again? What would I not have given at that moment to be able to turn back; but up at the window little Liv was sitting clapping her hands. Happy child, little do you know what life is—how strangely mingled and how full of change. Like an arrow the little boat sped over Lysaker Bay, bearing me on the first stage of a journey on which life itself, if not more, was staked.

At last everything was in readiness. The hour had arrived towards which the persevering labor of years had been incessantly bent, and with it the feeling that, everything being provided and completed, responsibility might be thrown aside and the weary brain at last find rest. The Fram lies yonder at Pepperviken, impatiently panting and waiting for the signal, when the launch comes puffing past Dyna and runs alongside. The deck is closely packed with people come to bid a last farewell, and now all must leave the ship. Then the Fram weighs anchor, and, heavily laden and moving slowly, makes the tour of the little creek. The quays are black with crowds of people waving their hats and handkerchiefs. But silently and quietly the Fram heads towards the fjord, steers slowly past Bygdö and Dyna out on her unknown path, while little nimble craft, steamers, and pleasure-boats swarm around her. Peaceful and snug lay the villas along the shore behind their veils of foliage, just as they ever seemed of old. Ah, “fair is the woodland slope, and never did it look fairer!” Long, long, will it be before we shall plough these well-known waters again.

And now a last farewell to home. Yonder it lies on the point—the fjord sparkling in front, pine and fir woods around, a little smiling meadow-land and long wood-clad ridges behind. Through the glass one could descry a summer-clad figure by the bench under the fir-tree. …

It was the darkest hour of the whole journey.

And now out into the fjord. It was rainy weather, and a feeling of melancholy seemed to brood over the familiar landscape with all its memories.

It was not until noon next day (June 25th) that the Fram glided into the bay by Rækvik, Archer’s shipyard, near Laurvik, where her cradle stood, and where many a golden dream had been dreamt of her victorious career. Here we were to take the two long-boats on board and have them set up on their davits, and there were several other things to be shipped. It took the whole day and a good part of the next before all was completed. About three o’clock on the 26th we bade farewell to Rækvik and made a bend into Laurvik Bay, in order to stand out to sea by Frederiksværn. Archer himself had to take the wheel and steer his child this last bit before leaving the ship. And then came the farewell hand-shake; but few words were spoken, and they got into the boat, he, my brothers, and a friend, while the Fram glided ahead with her heavy motion, and the bonds that united us were severed. It was sad and strange to see this last relic of home in that little skiff on the wide blue surface, Anker’s cutter behind, and Laurvik farther in the distance. I almost think a tear glittered on that fine old face as he stood erect in the boat and shouted a farewell to us and to the Fram. Do you think he does not love the vessel? That he believes in her I know well. So we gave him the first salute from the Fram’s guns—a worthier inauguration they could not well have had.

Full speed ahead, and in the calm, bright summer weather, while the setting sun shed his beams over the land, the Fram stood out towards the blue sea, to get its first roll in the long, heaving swell. They stood up in the boat and watched us for long.

We bore along the coast in good weather, past Christiansand. The next evening, June 27th, we were off the Naze. I sat up and chatted with Scott-Hansen till late in the night. He acted as captain on the trip from Christiania to Trondhjem, where Sverdrup was to join, after having accompanied his family to Steenkiær. As we sat there in the chart-house and let the hours slip by while we pushed on in the ever-increasing swell, all at once a sea burst open the door and poured in. We rushed out on deck. The ship rolled like a log, the seas broke in over the rails on both sides, and one by one up came all the crew. I feared most lest the slender davits which supported the long-boats should give way, and the boats themselves should go overboard, perhaps carrying away with them a lot of the rigging. Then twenty-five empty paraffin casks which were lashed on deck broke loose, washed backward and forward, and gradually filled with water; so that the outlook was not altogether agreeable. But it was worst of all when the piles of reserve timber, spars, and planks began the same dance, and threatened to break the props under the boats. It was an anxious hour. Sea-sick, I stood on the bridge, occupying myself in alternately making libations to Neptune and trembling for the safety of the boats and the men, who were trying to make snug what they could forward on deck. I often saw only a hotch-potch of sea, drifting planks, arms, legs, and empty barrels. Now a green sea poured over us and knocked a man off his legs so that the water deluged him; now I saw the lads jumping over hurtling spars and barrels, so as not to get their feet crushed between them. There was not a dry thread on them. Juell, who lay asleep in the “Grand Hotel,” as we called one of the long-boats, awoke to hear the sea roaring under him like a cataract. I met him at the cabin door as he came running down. It was no longer safe there, he thought; best to save one’s rags—he had a bundle under his arm. Then he set off forward to secure his sea-chest, which was floating about on the fore-deck, and dragged it hurriedly aft, while one heavy sea after another swept over him. Once the Fram buried her bows and shipped a sea over the forecastle. There was one fellow clinging to the anchor-davits over the frothing water. It was poor Juell again. We were hard put to it to secure our goods and chattels. We had to throw all our good paraffin casks overboard, and one prime timber balk after another went the same way, while I stood and watched them sadly as they floated off. The rest of the deck cargo was shifted aft on to the half-deck. I am afraid the shares in the expedition stood rather low at this moment. Then all at once, when things were about at their worst with us, we sighted a bark looming out of the fog ahead. There it lay with royals and all sails set, as snugly and peacefully as if nothing were the matter, rocking gently on the sea. It made one feel almost savage to look at it. Visions of the Flying Dutchman and other devilry flashed through my mind.

Terrible disaster in the cook’s galley! Mogstad goes in and sees the whole wall sprinkled over with dark-red stains—rushes off to Nordahl, and says he believes Juell has shot himself through despair at the insufferable heat he complains so about. “Great revolver disaster on board the Fram! …” On close inspection, however, the stains appeared to proceed from a box of chocolate that had upset in the cupboard.

Owing to the fog we dared not go too near land, so kept out to sea, till at last, towards morning, the fog lifted somewhat, and the pilot found his bearings between Farsund and Hummerdus. We put into Lister Fjord, intending to anchor there and get into better sea trim; but as the weather improved we went on our way. It was not till the afternoon that we steered into Ekersund, owing to thick weather and a stiff breeze, and anchored in Hovland’s Bay, where our pilot, Hovland,1 lived. Next morning the boat davits, etc., were put in good working order. The Fram, however, was too heavily laden to be at all easy in a seaway; but this we could not alter. What we had we must keep, and if we only got everything on deck shipshape and properly lashed, the sea could not do us much harm, however rough it might be; for we knew well enough that ship and rigging would hold out.

It was late in the evening of the last day of June when we rounded Kvarven and stood in for Bergen in the gloom of the sullen night. Next morning when I came on deck Vågen lay clear and bright in the sun, all the ships being gayly decked out with bunting from topmost to deck. The sun was holding high festival in the sky—Ulriken, Flöiren, and Lövstakken sparkled and glittered, and greeted me as of old. It is a marvellous place, that old Hanseatic town!

In the evening I was to give a lecture, but arrived half an hour too late. For just as I was dressing to go a number of bills poured in, and if I was to leave the town as a solvent man I must needs pay them, and so the public perforce had to wait. But the worst of it was that the saloon was full of those everlastingly inquisitive tourists. I could hear a whole company of them besieging my cabin door while I was dressing, declaring “they must shake hands with the doctor!”2 One of them actually peeped in through the ventilator at me, my secretary told me afterwards. A nice sight she must have seen, the lovely creature! Report says she drew her head back very quickly. Indeed, at every place where we put in we were looked on somewhat as wild animals in a menagerie. For they peeped unceremoniously at us in our berths as if we had been bears and lions in a den, and we could hear them loudly disputing among themselves as to who was who, and whether those nearest and dearest to us whose portraits hung on the walls could be called pretty or not. When I had finished my toilette I opened the door cautiously and made a rush through the gaping company. “There he is—there he is!”3 they called to each other as they tumbled up the steps after me. It was no use; I was on the quay and in the carriage long before they had reached the deck.

At 8 o’clock there was a great banquet, many fine speeches, good fare and excellent wine, pretty ladies, music, and dancing till far into the night.

Next morning at 11 o’clock—it was Sunday—in bright, sunshiny weather, we stood northward over Bergen Fjord, many friends accompanying us. It was a lovely, never-to-be-forgotten summer day. In Herlö Fjord, right out by the skerries, they parted from us, amid wavings of hats and pocket-handkerchiefs; we could see the little harbor boat for a long while with its black cloud of smoke on the sparkling surface of the water. Outside, the sea rolled in the hazy sunlight; and within lay the flat Mangerland, full of memories for me of zoological investigations in fair weather and foul, years and years ago. Here it was that one of Norway’s most famous naturalists, a lonely pastor far removed from the outer world, made his great discoveries. Here I myself first groped my way along the narrow path of zoological research.

It was a wondrous evening. The lingering flush of vanished day suffused the northern sky, while the moon hung large and round over the mountains behind us. Ahead lay Alden and Kinn, like a fairyland rising up from the sea. Tired as I was, I could not seek my berth; I must drink in all this loveliness in deep refreshing draughts. It was like balm to the soul after all the turmoil and friction with crowds of strangers.

So we went on our way, mostly in fair weather, occasionally in fog and rain, through sounds and between islands, northward along the coast of Norway. A glorious land—I wonder if another fairway like this is to be found the whole world over? Those never-to-be-forgotten mornings, when nature wakens to life, wreaths of mist glittering like silver over the mountains, their tops soaring above the mist like islands of the sea! Then the day gleaming over the dazzling white snow-peaks! And the evenings, and the sunsets with the pale moon overhead, white mountains and islands lay hushed and dreamlike as a youthful longing! Here and there past homely little havens with houses around them set in smiling green trees! Ah! those snug homes in the lee of the skerries awake a longing for life and warmth in the breast. You may shrug your shoulders as much as you like at the beauties of nature, but it is a fine thing for a people to have a fair land, be it never so poor. Never did this seem clearer to me than now when I was leaving it.

Every now and then a hurrah from land—at one time from a troop of children, at another from grown-up people, but mostly from wondering peasants who gaze long at the strange-looking ship and muse over its enigmatic destination. And men and women on board sloops and ten-oared boats stand up in their red shirts that glow in the sunlight, and rest on their oars to look at us. Steamboats crowded with people came out from the towns we passed to greet us, and bid us God-speed on our way with music, songs, and cannon salutes. The great tourist steamboats dipped flags to us and fired salutes, and the smaller craft did the same. It is embarrassing and oppressive to be the object of homage like this before anything has been accomplished. There is an old saying:

Most touching was the interest and sympathy with which these poor fisher-folk and peasants greeted us. It often set me wondering. I felt they followed us with fervent eagerness. I remember one day—it was north in Helgeland—an old woman was standing waving and waving to us on a bare crag. Her cottage lay some distance inland. “I wonder if it can really be us she is waving to,” I said to the pilot, who was standing beside me. “You may be sure it is,” was the answer. “But how can she know who we are?” “Oh! they know all about the Fram up here, in every cabin, and they will be on the lookout for you as you come back, I can tell you,” he answered. Aye, truly, it is a responsible task we are undertaking, when the whole nation are with us like this. What if the thing should turn out a huge disappointment!

In the evening I would sit and look around—lonely huts lay scattered here and there on points and islets. Here the Norwegian people wear out their lives in the struggle with the rocks, in the struggle with the sea; and it is this people that is sending us out into the great hazardous unknown; the very folk who stand there in their fishing-boats and look wonderingly after the Fram as she slowly and heavily steams along on her northward course. Many of them wave their sou’-westers and shout “Hurrah!” Others have barely time to gape at us in wonderment. In on the point are a troop of women waving and shouting; outside a few boats with ladies in light summer-dresses, and gentlemen at the oars entertaining them with small-talk as they wave their parasols and pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes; it is they who are sending us out. It is not a cheering thought. Not one of them, probably, knows what they are paying their money for. Maybe they have heard it is a glorious enterprise; but why? To what end? Are we not defrauding them? But their eyes are riveted on the ship, and perhaps there dawns before their minds a momentary vision of a new and inconceivable world, with aspirations after a something of which they know naught. … And here on board are men who are leaving wife and children behind them. How sad has been the separation! what longing, what yearning, await them in the coming years! And it is not for profit they do it. For honor and glory then? These may be scant enough. It is the same thirst for achievement, the same craving to get beyond the limits of the known, which inspired this people in the Saga times that is stirring in them again to-day. In spite of all our toil for subsistence, in spite of all our “peasant politics,” sheer utilitarianism is perhaps not so dominant among us, after all.

As time was precious I did not, as originally intended, put in at Trondhjem, but stopped at Beian, where Sverdrup joined us. Here Professor Brögger also came on board, to accompany us as far as Tromsö.

Here, too, our doctor received three monstrous chests with the medicine supply, a gift from Apothecary Bruun, of Trondhjem.

And so on towards the north, along the lovely coast of Nordland. We stopped at one or two places to take dried fish on board as provision for the dogs. Past Torghatten, the Seven Sisters, and Hestemanden; past Lovunen and Trænen, far out yonder in the sea; past Lofoten and all the other lovely places—each bold gigantic form wilder and more beautiful than the last. It is unique—a fairyland—a land of dreams. We felt afraid to go on too fast, for fear of missing something.

On July 12th we arrived at Tromsö, where we were to take in coal and other things, such as reindeer cloaks, “komager” (a sort of Lapp moccasin), Finn shoes, “senne” grass, dried reindeer flesh, etc., etc., all of which had been procured by that indefatigable friend of the expedition, Advocate Mack. Tromsö gave us a cold reception—a northwesterly gale, with driving snow and sleet. Mountains, plains, and house-roofs were all covered with snow down to the water’s edge. It was the very bitterest July day I ever experienced. The people there said they could not remember such a July. Perhaps they were afraid the place would come into disrepute, for in a town where they hold snow-shoe races on Midsummer Day one may be prepared for anything in the way of weather.

In Tromsö the next day a new member of the expedition was engaged, Bernt Bentzen—a stout fellow to look at. He originally intended accompanying us only as far as Yugor Strait, but as a matter of fact he went the whole voyage with us, and proved a great acquisition, being not only a capital seaman, but a cheerful and amusing comrade.

After a stay of two days we again set out. On the night of the 16th, east of the North Cape or Magerö, we met with such a nasty sea, and shipped so much water on deck, that we put into Kjöllefjord to adjust our cargo better by shifting the coal and making a few other changes. We worked at this the whole of two days, and made everything clear for the voyage to Novaya Zemlya. I had at first thought of taking on board a fresh supply of coal at Vardö, but as we were already deeply laden, and the Urania was to meet us at Yugor Strait with coal, we thought it best to be contented with what we had already got on board, as we might expect bad weather in crossing the White Sea and Barents Sea. At ten o’clock in the evening we weighed anchor, and reached Vardö next evening, where we met with a magnificent reception. There was a band of music on the pier, the fjord teemed with boats, flags waved on every hand, and salutes were fired. The people had been waiting for us ever since the previous evening, we were told—some of them, indeed, coming from Vadsö—and they had seized the opportunity to get up a subscription to provide a big drum for the town band, the “North Pole.” And here we were entertained at a sumptuous banquet, with speeches, and champagne flowing in streams, ere we bade Norway our last farewell.

The last thing that had now to be done for the Fram was to have her bottom cleaned of mussels and weeds, so that she might be able to make the best speed possible. This work was done by divers, who were readily placed at our service by the local inspector of the Government Harbor Department.

But our own bodies also claimed one last civilized feast of purification before entering on a life of savagery. The bath-house of the town is a small timber building. The bath-room itself is low, and provided with shelves where you lie down and are parboiled with hot steam, which is constantly kept up by water being thrown on the glowing hot stones of an awful oven, worthy of hell itself; while all the time young quæn (lasses) flog you with birch twigs. After that you are rubbed down, washed, and dried delightfully—everything being well managed, clean, and comfortable. I wonder whether old Father Mahomet has set up a bath like this in his paradise.

1. Both Hovland, who piloted us from Christiania to Bergen, and Johan Hågensen, who took us from Bergen to Vardö, were most kindly placed at the disposal of the expedition by the Nordenfjeldske Steamship Company, of Trondhjem.

2. English in the original.

3. English in the original.

Chapter IV
Farewell to Norway

I felt in a strange mood as I sat up the last night writing letters and telegrams. We had bidden farewell to our excellent pilot, Johan Hågensen, who had piloted us from Bergen, and now we were only the thirteen members of the expedition, together with my secretary, Christofersen, who had accompanied us so far, and was to go on with us as far as Yugor Strait. Everything was so calm and still, save for the scraping of the pen that was sending off a farewell to friends at home.

All the men were asleep below.

The last telegram was written, and I sent my secretary ashore with it. It was 3 o’clock in the morning when he returned, and I called Sverdrup up, and one or two others. We weighed anchor, and stood out of the harbor in the silence of the morning. The town still lay wrapped in sleep; everything looked so peaceful and lovely all around, with the exception of a little stir of awakening toil on board one single steamer in the harbor. A sleepy fisherman stuck his head up out of the half-deck of his ten-oared boat, and stared at us as we steamed past the breakwater; and on the revenue cutter outside there was a man fishing in that early morning light.

This last impression of Norway was just the right one for us to carry away with us. Such beneficent peace and calm; such a rest for the thoughts; no hubbub and turmoil of people with their hurrahs and salutes. The masts in the harbor, the house-roofs, and chimneys stood out against the cool morning sky. Just then the sun broke through the mist and smiled over the shore—rugged, bare, and weather-worn in the hazy morning, but still lovely—dotted here and there with tiny houses and boats, and all Norway lay behind it. …

While the Fram was slowly and quietly working her way out to sea, towards our distant goal, I stood and watched the land gradually fading away on the horizon. I wonder what will happen to her and to us before we again see Norway rising up over the sea?

But a fog soon came on and obscured everything.

And through fog, nothing but fog, we steamed away for four days without stopping, until, when I came on deck on the morning of the 25th of July, behold clear weather! The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the bright blue sea was heaving with a gentle swell. Again it was good to be a living being, and to drink in the peacefulness of the sea in long draughts. Towards noon we sighted Goose Land on Novaya Zemlya, and stood in towards it. Guns and cartridges were got ready, and we looked forward with joyful anticipation to roast goose and other game; but we had gone but a short distance when the gray woolly fog from the southeast came up and enveloped us. Again we were shut off from the world around us. It was scarcely prudent to make for land, so we set our course eastward towards Yugor Strait; but a head-wind soon compelled us to beat up under steam and sail, which we went on doing for a couple of days, plunged in a world of fog. Ugh! that endless, stubborn fog of the Arctic Sea! When it lowers its curtain, and shuts out the blue above and the blue below, and everything becomes a damp gray mist, day in and day out, then all the vigor and elasticity of the soul is needed to save one from being stifled in its clammy embrace. Fog, and nothing but fog, wherever we turn our eyes. It condenses on the rigging and drips down on every tiniest spot on deck. It lodges on your clothes, and finally wets you through and through. It settles down on the mind and spirits, and everything becomes one uniform gray.

On the evening of July 27th, while still fog-bound, we quite unexpectedly met with ice; a mere strip, indeed, which we easily passed through, but it boded ill. In the night we met with more—a broader strip this time, which also we passed through. But next morning I was called up with the information that there was thick, old ice ahead. Well, if ice difficulties were to begin so soon, it would be a bad lookout indeed. Such are the chill surprises that the Arctic Sea has more than enough of. I dressed and was up in the crow’s-nest in a twinkling. The ice lay extended everywhere, as far as the eye could reach through the fog, which had lifted a little. There was no small quantity of ice, but it was tolerably open, and there was nothing for it but to be true to our watchword and “gå fram”—push onward. For a good while we picked our way. But now it began to lie closer, with large floes every here and there, and at the same time the fog grew denser, and we could not see our way at all. To go ahead in difficult ice and in a fog is not very prudent, for it is impossible to tell just where you are going, and you are apt to be set fast before you know where you are. So we had to stop and wait. But still the fog grew ever denser, while the ice did the same. Our hopes meanwhile rose and fell, but mostly the latter, I think. To encounter so much ice already in these waters, where at this time of year the sea is, as a rule, quite free from it, boded anything but good. Already at Tromsö and Vardö we had heard bad news; the White Sea, they said, had only been clear of ice a very short time, and a boat that had tried to reach Yugor Strait had had to turn back because of the ice. Neither were our anticipations of the Kara Sea altogether cheerful. What might we not expect there? For the Urania, with our coals, too, this ice was a bad business; for it would be unable to make its way through unless it had found navigable water farther south along the Russian coast.

Just as our prospects were at their darkest, and we were preparing to seek a way back out of the ice, which kept getting ever denser, the joyful tidings came that the fog was lifting, and that clear water was visible ahead to the east on the other side of the ice. After forcing our way ahead for some hours between the heavy floes, we were once more in open water. This first bout with the ice, however, showed us plainly what an excellent ice-boat the Fram was. It was a royal pleasure to work her ahead through difficult ice. She twisted and turned “like a ball on a platter.” No channel between the floes so winding and awkward but she could get through it. But it is hard work for the helmsman. “Hard astarboard! Hard aport! Steady! Hard astarboard again!” goes on incessantly without so much as a breathing-space. And he rattles the wheel round, the sweat pours off him, and round it goes again like a spinning-wheel. And the ship swings round and wriggles her way forward among the floes without touching, if there is only just an opening wide enough for her to slip through; and where there is none she drives full tilt at the ice, with her heavy plunge, runs her sloping bows up on it, treads it under her, and bursts the floes asunder. And how strong she is too! Even when she goes full speed at a floe, not a creak, not a sound, is to be heard in her; if she gives a little shake it is all she does.

On Saturday, July 29th, we again headed eastward towards Yugor Strait as fast as sails and steam could take us. We had open sea ahead, the weather was fine and the wind fair. Next morning we came under the south side of Dolgoi or Langöia, as the Norwegian whalers call it, where we had to stand to the northward. On reaching the north of the island we again bore eastward. Here I descried from the crow’s-nest, as far as I could make out, several islands which are not given on the charts. They lay a little to the east of Langöia.

It was now pretty clear that the Urania had not made her way through the ice. While we were sitting in the saloon in the forenoon, talking about it, a cry was heard from deck that the sloop was in sight. It was joyful news, but the joy was of no long duration. The next moment we heard she had a crow’s-nest on her mast, so she was doubtless a sealer. When she sighted us she bore off to the south, probably fearing that we were a Russian war-ship or something equally bad. So, as we had no particular interest in her, we let her go on her way in peace.

Later in the day we neared Yugor Strait. We kept a sharp lookout for land ahead, but none could be seen. Hour after hour passed as we glided onward at good speed, but still no land. Certainly it would not be high land, but nevertheless this was strange. Yes—there it lies, like a low shadow over the horizon, on the port bow. It is land—it is Vaigats Island. Soon we sight more of it—abaft the beam; then, too, the mainland on the south side of the strait. More and more of it comes in sight—it increases rapidly. All low and level land, no heights, no variety, no apparent opening for the strait ahead. Thence it stretches away to the north and south in a soft low curve. This is the threshold of Asia’s boundless plains, so different from all we have been used to.

We now glided into the strait, with its low rocky shores on either side. The strata of the rocks lie endways, and are crumpled and broken, but on the surface everything is level and smooth. No one who travels over the flat green plains and tundras would have any idea of the mysteries and upheavals that lie hidden beneath the sward. Here once upon a time were mountains and valleys, now all worn away and washed out.

We looked out for Khabarova. On the north side of the sound there was a mark; a shipwrecked sloop lay on the shore; it was a Norwegian sealer. The wreck of a smaller vessel lay by its side. On the south side was a flag-staff, and on it a red flag; Khabarova must then lie behind it. At last one or two buildings or shanties appeared behind a promontory, and soon the whole place lay exposed to view, consisting of tents and a few houses. On a little jutting-out point close by us was a large red building, with white door-frames, of a very homelike appearance. It was indeed a Norwegian warehouse which Sibiriakoff had imported from Finmarken. But here the water was shallow, and we had to proceed carefully for fear of running aground. We kept heaving the lead incessantly—we had 5 fathoms of water, and then 4, then not much more than we needed, and then it shelved to a little over 3 fathoms. This was rather too close work, so we stood out again a bit to wait till we got a little nearer the place before drawing in to the shore.

A boat was now seen slowly approaching from the land. A man of middle height, with an open, kindly face and reddish beard, came on board. He might have been a Norwegian from his appearance. I went to meet him, and asked him in German if he was Trontheim. Yes, he was. After him there came a number of strange figures clad in heavy robes of reindeer-skin, which nearly touched the deck. On their heads they wore peculiar “bashlyk”-like caps of reincalf-skin, beneath which strongly marked bearded faces showed forth, such as might well have belonged to old Norwegian Vikings. The whole scene, indeed, called up in my mind a picture of the Viking Age, of expeditions to Gardarike and Bjarmeland. They were fine, stalwart-looking fellows, these Russian traders, who barter with the natives, giving them brandy in exchange for bearskins, sealskins, and other valuables, and who, when once they have a hold on a man, keep him in such a state of dependence that he can scarcely call his soul his own. “Es ist eine alte Geschichte, doch wird sie immer neu.” Soon, too, the Samoyedes came flocking on board, pleasant-featured people of the broad Asiatic type. Of course it was only the men who came.

The first question I asked Trontheim was about the ice. He replied that Yugor Strait had been open a long while, and that he had been expecting our arrival every day since then with ever-increasing anxiety. The natives and the Russians had begun to jeer at him as time went on, and no Fram was to be seen; but now he had his revenge and was all sunshine. He thought the state of the ice in the Kara Sea would be favorable; some Samoyedes had said so, who had been seal-hunting near the eastern entrance of the Strait a day or two previously. This was not very much to build upon, certainly, but still sufficient to make us regret that we had not got there before. Then we spoke of the Urania, of which no one, of course, had seen anything. No ship had put in there for some time, except the sealing sloop we had passed in the morning.

Next we inquired about the dogs, and learned that everything was all right with them. To make sure, Trontheim had purchased forty dogs, though I had only asked for thirty. Five of these, from various mishaps, had died during their journey—one had been bitten to death, two had got hung fast and had been strangled while passing through a forest, etc., etc. One, moreover, had been taken ill a few days before, and was still on the sick list; but the remaining thirty-four were in good condition: we could hear them howling and barking. During this conversation we had come as near to Khabarova as we dared venture, and at seven in the evening cast anchor in about 3 fathoms of water.

Over the supper-table Trontheim told us his adventures. On the way from Sopva and Ural to the Pechora he heard that there was a dog epidemic in that locality; consequently he did not think it advisable to go to the Pechora as he had intended, but laid his course instead direct from Ural to Yugor Strait. Towards the end of the journey the snow had disappeared, and, in company with a reindeer caravan, he drove on with his dogs over the bare plain, stocks and stones and all, using the sledges none the less. The Samoyedes and natives of Northern Siberia have no vehicles but sledges. The summer sledge is somewhat higher than the winter sledge, in order that it may not hang fast upon stones and stumps. As may be supposed, however, summer sledging is anything but smooth work.

After supper we went ashore, and were soon on the flat beach of Khabarova, the Russians and Samoyedes regarding us with the utmost curiosity. The first objects to attract our attention were the two churches—an old venerable-looking wooden shed, of an oblong rectangular form, and an octagonal pavilion, not unlike many summer-houses or garden pavilions that I have seen at home. How far the divergence between the two forms of religion was indicated in the two mathematical figures I am unable to say. It might be that the simplicity of the old faith was expressed in the simple, four-sided building, while the rites and ceremonies of the other were typified in the octagonal form, with its double number of corners to stumble against. Then we must go and see the monastery—“Skit,” as it was called—where the six monks had lived, or rather died, from what people said was scurvy, probably helped out by alcohol. It lay over against the new church, and resembled an ordinary low Russian timber-house. The priest and his assistants were living there now, and had asked Trontheim to take up his quarters with them. Trontheim, therefore, invited us in, and we soon found ourselves in a couple of comfortable log-built rooms with open fireplaces like our Norwegian “peis.”

After this we proceeded to the dog-camp, which was situated on a plain at some distance from the houses and tents. As we approached it the howling and barking kept getting worse and worse. When a short distance off we were surprised to see a Norwegian flag on the top of a pole. Trontheim’s face beamed with joy as our eyes fell on it. It was, he said, under the same flag as our expedition that his had been undertaken. There stood the dogs tied up, making a deafening clamor. Many of them appeared to be well-bred animals—long-haired, snow-white, with up-standing ears and pointed muzzles. With their gentle, good-natured looking faces they at once ingratiated themselves in our affections. Some of them more resembled a fox, and had shorter coats, while others were black or spotted. Evidently they were of different races, and some of them betrayed by their drooping ears a strong admixture of European blood. After having duly admired the ravenous way in which they swallowed raw fish (gwiniad), not without a good deal of snarling and wrangling, we took a walk inland to a lake close by in search of game; but we only found an Arctic gull with its brood. A channel had been dug from this lake to convey drinking-water to Khabarova. According to what Trontheim told us, this was the work of the monks—about the only work, probably, they had ever taken in hand. The soil here was a soft clay, and the channel was narrow and shallow, like a roadside ditch or gutter; the work could not have been very arduous. On the hill above the lake stood the flagstaff which we had noticed on our arrival. It had been erected by the excellent Trontheim to bid us welcome, and on the flag itself, as I afterwards discovered by chance, was the word “Vorwärts.” Trontheim had been told that was the name of our ship, so he was not a little disappointed when he came on board to find it was Fram instead. I consoled him, however, by telling him they both meant the same thing, and that his welcome was just as well meant, whether written in German or Norwegian. Trontheim told me afterwards that he was by descent a Norwegian, his father having been a ship’s captain from Trondhjem, and his mother an Esthonian, settled at Riga. His father had been much at sea, and had died early, so the son had not learnt Norwegian.

Naturally our first and foremost object was to learn all we could about the ice in the Arctic Sea. We had determined to push on as soon as possible; but we must have the boiler put in order first, while sundry pipes and valves in the engine wanted seeing to. As it would take several days to do this, Sverdrup, Peter Henriksen, and I set out next morning in our little petroleum launch to the eastern opening of the Yugor Strait, to see with our own eyes what might be the condition of the ice to the eastward. It was 28 miles thither. A quantity of ice was drifting through the strait from the east, and, as there was a northerly breeze, we at once turned our course northward to get under the lee of the north shore, where the water was more open. I had the rather thankless task of acting as helmsman and engineer at one and the same time. The boat went on like a little hero and made about six knots. Everything looked bright. But, alas! good fortune seldom lasts long, especially when one has to do with petroleum launches. A defect in the circulation-pump soon stopped the engine, and we could only go for short distances at a time, till we reached the north shore, where, after two hours’ hard work, I got the engines so far in order as to be able to continue our journey to the northeast through the sound between the drifting floes. We got on pretty well, except for an interruption every now and then when the engine took it into its head to come to a standstill. It caused a good deal of merriment when the stalwart Peter turned the crank to set her off again and the engine gave a start so as nearly to pull his arms out of joint and upset him head over heels in the boat. Every now and then a flock of long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis) or other birds came whizzing by us, one or two of them invariably falling to our guns.

We had kept along the Vaigats shore, but now crossed over towards the south side of the strait. When about the middle of the channel I was startled by all at once seeing the bottom grow light under us, and had nearly run the boat on a shoal of which no one knew anything. There was scarcely more than two or three feet of water, and the current ran over it like a rapid river. Shoals and sunken rocks abound there on every hand, especially on the south side of the strait, and it required great care to navigate a vessel through it. Near the eastern mouth of the strait we put into a little creek, dragged the boat up on the beach, and then, taking our guns, made for some high-lying land we had noticed. We tramped along over the same undulating plain-land with low ridges, as we had seen everywhere round the Yugor Strait. A brownish-green carpet of moss and grass spread over the plain, bestrewn with flowers of rare beauty. During the long, cold Siberian winter the snow lies in a thick mass over the tundra; but no sooner does the sun get the better of it than hosts of tiny northern flowers burst their way up through the fast-disappearing coating of snow and open their modest calices, blushing in the radiant summer day that bathes the plain in its splendor. Saxifrages with large blooms, pale-yellow mountain poppies (Papaver nudicaule) stand in bright clusters, and here and there with bluish forget-me-nots and white cloud-berry flowers; in some boggy hollows the cotton-grass spreads its wavy down carpet, while in other spots small forests of bluebells softly tingle in the wind on their upright stalks. These flowers are not at all brilliant specimens, being in most cases not more than a couple of inches high, but they are all the more exquisite on that account, and in such surroundings their beauty is singularly attractive. While the eye vainly seeks for a resting-place over the boundless plain, these modest blooms smile at you and take the fancy captive.

And over these mighty tundra-plains of Asia, stretching infinitely onward from one sky-line to the other, the nomad wanders with his reindeer herds, a glorious, free life! Where he wills he pitches his tent, his reindeer around him; and at his will again he goes on his way. I almost envied him. He has no goal to struggle towards, no anxieties to endure—he has merely to live! I wellnigh wished that I could live his peaceful life, with wife and child, on these boundless, open plains, unfettered, happy.

After we had proceeded a short distance, we became aware of a white object sitting on a stone heap beneath a little ridge, and soon noticed more in other directions. They looked quite ghostly as they sat there silent and motionless. With the help of my field-glass I discovered that they were snow-owls. We set out after them, but they took care to keep out of the range of a fowling-piece. Sverdrup, however, shot one or two with his rifle. There was a great number of them; I could count as many as eight or ten at once. They sat motionless on tussocks of grass or stones, watching, no doubt, for lemmings, of which, judging from their tracks, there must have been quantities. We, however, did not see any.

From the tops of the ridges we could see over the Kara Sea to the northeast. Everywhere ice could be descried through the telescope, far on the horizon—ice, too, that seemed tolerably close and massive. But between it and the coast there was open water, stretching, like a wide channel, as far as the eye could reach to the southeast. This was all we could make out, but it was in reality all we wanted. There seemed to be no doubt that we could make our way forward, and, well satisfied, we returned to our boat. Here we lighted a fire of driftwood, and made some glorious coffee.

As the coffee-kettle was singing over a splendid fire, and we stretched ourselves at full length on the slope by its side and smoked a quiet pipe, Sverdrup made himself thoroughly comfortable, and told us one story after another. However gloomy a country might look, however desolate, if only there were plenty of driftwood on the beach, so that one could make a right good fire, the bigger the better, then his eyes would glisten with delight—that land was his El Dorado. So from that time forth he conceived a high opinion of the Siberian coast—a right good place for wintering, he called it.

On our way back we ran at full speed on to a sunken rock. After a bump or two the boat slid over it; but just as she was slipping off on the other side the propeller struck on the rock, so that the stern gave a bound into the air while the engine whizzed round at a tearing rate. It all happened in a second, before I had time to stop her. Unluckily one screw blade was broken off, but we drove ahead with the other as best we could. Our progress was certainly rather uneven, but for all that we managed to get on somehow.

Towards morning we drew near the Fram, passing two Samoyedes, who had drawn their boat up on an ice-floe and were looking out for seals. I wonder what they thought when they saw our tiny boat shoot by them without steam, sails, or oars. We, at all events, looked down on these “poor savages” with the self-satisfied compassion of Europeans, as, comfortably seated, we dashed past them.

But pride comes before a fall! We had not gone far when—whir, whir, whir—a fearful racket! bits of broken steel springs whizzed past my ears, and the whole machine came to a dead stop. It was not to be moved either forward or backward. The vibration of the one-bladed propeller had brought the lead line little by little within the range of the fly-wheel, and all at once the whole line was drawn into the machinery, and got so dreadfully entangled in it that we had to take the whole thing to pieces to get it clear once more. So we had to endure the humiliation of rowing back to our proud ship, for whose flesh-pots we had long been anhungered.

The net result of the day was: tolerably good news about the Kara Sea; forty birds, principally geese and long-tailed ducks; one seal; and a disabled boat. Amundsen and I, however, soon put this in complete repair again—but in so doing I fear I forfeited forever and a day the esteem of the Russians and Samoyedes in these parts. Some of them had been on board in the morning and seen me hard at work in the boat in my shirt-sleeves, face and bare arms dirty with oil and other messes. They went on shore afterwards to Trontheim, and said that I could not possibly be a great person, slaving away like any other workman on board, and looking worse than a common rough. Trontheim, unfortunately, knew of nothing that could be said in my excuse; there is no fighting against facts.

In the evening some of us went on shore to try the dogs. Trontheim picked out ten of them and harnessed them to a Samoyede sledge. No sooner were we ready and I had taken my seat than the team caught sight of a wretched strange dog that had come near, and off dashed dogs, sledge, and my valuable person after the poor creature. There was a tremendous uproar; all the ten tumbled over each other like wild wolves, biting and tearing wherever they could catch hold; blood ran in streams, and the culprit howled pitiably, while Trontheim tore round like a madman, striking right and left with his long switch. Samoyedes and Russians came screaming from all sides. I sat passively on the sledge in the middle of it all, dumb with fright, and it was ever so long before it occurred to me that there was perhaps something for me too to do. With a horrible yell I flung myself on some of the worst fighters, got hold of them by the neck, and managed to give the culprit time to get away.