The Winter Night. 299 



" Thursday, December 2ist. It is extraordinary, after 

 all, how the time passes. Here we are at the shortest 

 day, though we have no day. But now we are moving 

 on to light and summer again. We tried to sound 

 to-day; had out 2,100 metres (over 1,100 fathoms) of 

 line without reaching the bottom. We have no more 

 line ; what is to be done ? Who could have guessed 

 that we should find such deep water ? There has been 

 an arch of light in the sky all day, opposite the moon ; 

 so it is a lunar rainbow, but without colours, so far as I 

 have been able to see. 



' Friday, December 2 2nd. A bear was shot last night. 

 Jacobsen saw it first, during his watch. He shot at it. 

 It made off; and he then went down and told about it 

 in the cabin. Mogstad and Peter came on deck ; 

 Sverclrup was called, too, and came up a little later. 

 They saw the bear on his way towards the ship again ; 

 but he suddenly caught sight of the gallows with the trap 

 on the ice to the west, and went off there. He looked 

 well at the apparatus, then raised himself cautiously on 

 his hind-legs, and laid his right paw on the cross-beam 

 just beside the trap, stared for a little, hesitating, at 

 the delicious morsel, but did not at all like the ugly jaws 

 round it. Sverdrup was by this time out at the deck- 

 house, watching in the sparkling moonshine, His heart 

 was jumping he expected every moment to hear the 

 snap of his trap. But the bear shook his head sus- 

 piciously, lowered himself cautiously on to all-fours again, 



