88 Chapter III. 



pilot, Hovland,* 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 

 shipshape and properly lashed, the sea could not do us 

 much harm however rough it might be ; for we knew 

 well enough that ship 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, Vagen lay clear and bright in the sun, 

 all the ships being gaily decked out with bunting from 

 topmast 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 



* Both Hovland who piloted us from Christiania to Bergen, and 

 Johan Hagensen who took us from Bergen to Vardo, were most kindly 

 placed at the disposal of the expedition by the Nordenfjeldske 

 Steamship Company of Trondhjem. 



