

The Start. 93 



struggle with the rocks, in the struggle with the sea ; 

 and it is this people that is sending us out into the great 

 hazardous unknown ; the very folk who stand there in 

 their fishing-boats and look wonderingly after the Fram 

 as she slowly and heavily steams along on her northward 

 course. Many of them wave their sou'-westers and 

 shout ''Hurrah!" Others have barely time to gape at 

 us in wonderment. In on the point are a troop of 

 women waving and shouting, outside a few boats with 

 ladies in liorht summer dresses and orentlemen at the oars 



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entertaining them with small-talk, as they wave their 

 parasols and pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes ; it is they who 

 are sending us out. It is not a cheering thought. Not 

 one of them, probably, knows what they are paying their 

 money for. Maybe they have heard it is a glorious 

 enterprise ; but why ? to what end ? Are we not 

 defrauding them ? But their eyes are rivetted on the 

 ship, and perhaps there dawns before their minds a 

 momentary vision of a new and inconceivable world, 



j 



with aspirations after a something of which they know 

 naught. . . . And here on board are men who are 

 leaving wife and children behind them. How sad has 

 been the separation what longing, what yearning await 

 them in the coming years ! And it is not for profit they 

 do it. For honour and glory then ? These may be 

 scant enough. It is the same thirst for achievement, 

 the same craving to get beyond the limits of the known 

 which inspired this people in the Saga times, that is 



