Farthest North Volume I Part 4

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 gla.s.s 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 Raekvik, Archer's s.h.i.+pyard, 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 s.h.i.+pped. 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 Raekvik and made a bend into Laurvik Bay, in order to stand out to sea by Frederiksvaern. Archer himself had to take the wheel and steer his child this last bit before leaving the s.h.i.+p. 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 Steenkiaer. 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+pped 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 anch.o.r.ed in Hovland's Bay, where our pilot, Hovland, [18]

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 s.h.i.+pshape and properly lashed, the sea could not do us much harm, however rough it might be; for we knew well enough that s.h.i.+p 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 Vgen lay clear and bright in the sun, all the s.h.i.+ps being gayly decked out with bunting from topmost to deck. The sun was holding high festival in the sky--Ulriken, Floiren, and Lovstakken 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!" [19] 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!" [20] 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, suns.h.i.+ny weather, we stood northward over Bergen Fjord, many friends accompanying us. It was a lovely, never-to-be-forgotten summer day. In Herlo 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 refres.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p and muse over its enigmatic destination. And men and women on board sloops and ten-oared boats stand up in their red s.h.i.+rts that glow in the sunlight, and rest on their oars to look at us. Steamboats crowded with people came out from the towns we pa.s.sed to greet us, and bid us G.o.d-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 embarra.s.sing and oppressive to be the object of homage like this before anything has been accomplished. There is an old saying:

"At eve the day shall be praised, The wife when she is burnt, The sword when tried, The woman when married, The ice when pa.s.sed over, Ale when drunk."

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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 s.h.i.+p, 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 Brogger also came on board, to accompany us as far as Tromso.

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 Traenen, 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 Tromso, where we were to take in coal and other things, such as reindeer cloaks, "komager" (a sort of Lapp moccasin), Finn shoes, "senne" gra.s.s, dried reindeer flesh, etc., etc., all of which had been procured by that indefatigable friend of the expedition, Advocate Mack. Tromso 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 Tromso 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 Magero, we met with such a nasty sea, and s.h.i.+pped so much water on deck, that we put into Kjollefjord to adjust our cargo better by s.h.i.+fting 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 Vardo, 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 Vardo 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 Vadso--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 h.e.l.l itself; while all the time young quaen (la.s.ses) 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.

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 Hgensen, 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 sc.r.a.ping 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 ash.o.r.e 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.e--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 s.h.i.+ning 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.sed through, but it boded ill. In the night we met with more--a broader strip this time, which also we pa.s.sed 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 quant.i.ty of ice, but it was tolerably open, and there was nothing for it but to be true to our watchword and "g 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 Tromso and Vardo 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 antic.i.p.ations 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-s.p.a.ce. And he rattles the wheel round, the sweat pours off him, and round it goes again like a spinning-wheel. And the s.h.i.+p 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 Langoia, 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 Langoia.

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-s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.es 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked sloop lay on the sh.o.r.e; 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 suns.h.i.+ne. 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 s.h.i.+p had put in there for some time, except the sealing sloop we had pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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.