The Winter Night. 257 



time is passing all to no purpose ; and goodness only 

 knows how long this sort of thing may go on. If only a 

 good south wind would come and drive us north, out of 

 this hobble ! The boys have taken up the rudder again 

 to-day. While they were working at this in the afternoon, 

 it suddenly grew as bright as day. A strange, fire-ball 

 crossed the sky in the west giving a bluish-white light, 

 they said. Johansen ran down to the saloon to tell 

 Hansen and me ; he said they could still see the bright 

 trails it had left in its train. When we got on deck we 

 saw a bent bow of light in the ' Triangle,' near ' Deheb.' 

 The meteor had disappeared in the neighbourhood of 

 ' Epsilon Cygni ' (constellation ' Swan '), but its light 

 remained for a long time floating in the air like glowing 

 dust. No one had seen the actual fire-ball, as they had 

 all had their backs turned to it, and they could not say 

 if it had burst. This is the second great meteor of 

 exceptional splendour that has appeared to us in these 

 regions. The ice has a curious inclination to slacken, 

 without pressure having occurred, and every now and 

 then we find the ship floating in open water. This is 

 the case to-day." 



<: Saturday, October 28th. Nothing of any import- 

 ance. Moonshine night and day. A glow in the south 

 from the sun." 



" Sunday, October 29th. Peter shot a white fox this 

 morning close in to the ship. For some time lately we 

 have been seeing fox tracks in the mornings, and one 



s 



