176 Chapter V. 



me on a summer voyage in the Arctic regions ; and 

 we had hardly seen a seal." The fact that they had not 

 seen a seal is simply enough explained by the absence of 

 ice. From my impression of it, the region must, on the 

 contrary, abound in seals. Norclenskiold himself says 

 that "numbers of seals, both pJwca barbctta and pJioca 

 Jiispida, were to be seen " on the ice in Taimur Straits. 



So this was all the progress we had made up to the 

 end of August. On August i8th, 1878, Nordenskiold 

 had passed through this sound, and on the igthand 2Oth 

 passed Cape Chelyuskin, but here was an impenetrable 

 mass of ice frozen on to the land lying in our way at the 

 end of the month. The prospect was anything but 

 cheering. Were the many prophets of evil there is 

 never any scarcity of them to prove right even at this 

 early stage of the undertaking ? No ! The Taimur 

 Strait must be attempted, and should this attempt fail, 

 another last one should be made outside all the islands 

 again. Possibly the ice masses out there might in the 

 meantime have drifted and left an open way. We could 

 not stop here. 



September came in with a still, melancholy snowfall ; 

 and this desolate land with its low, rounded heights, soon 

 lay under a deep covering. It did not acid to our cheerful- 

 ness to see winter thus gently and noiselessly ushered in 

 after an all too short summer. 



On September 2nd the boiler was ready at last, was 

 filled with fresh water from the sea surface, and we pre- 



