312 Chapter VI. 



on deck, no tent, no clothing, in readiness. This may- 

 seem like recklessness, but in reality there is not the 

 slightest prospect of the pressure harming us ; we know 

 now what the Fram can bear. Proud of our splendid, 

 strong ship, we stand on her deck watching the ice come 

 hurtling against her sides, being crushed and broken 

 there and having to go down below her, while new ice- 

 masses tumble upon her out of the dark, to meet the 

 same fate. Here and there, amid deafening noise, some 

 great mass rises up and launches itself threateningly 

 upon the bulwarks, only to sink down suddenly, 

 dragged the same way as the others. But at times 

 when one hears the roaring of tremendous pressure in 

 the night, as a rule so deathly still, one cannot but call 

 to mind the disasters that this uncontrollable power 

 has wrought. 



" I am reading the story of Kane's expedition just now. 

 Unfortunate man, his preparations were miserably 

 inadequate ; it seems to me to have been a reckless, 

 unjustifiable proceeding to set out with such equipments. 

 Almost all the dogs died of bad food ; all the men had 

 scurvy from the same cause, with snow-blindness, 

 frost-bites, and all kinds of miseries. He learned a 

 wholesome awe of the Arctic night, and one can hardly 

 wonder at it. He writes on page 173 : 'I feel that we 

 are fighting the battle of life at disadvantage, and that 

 an Arctic day and an Arctic night age a man more 

 rapidly and harshly than a year anywhere else in this 



