Voyage through the Kara Sea. 177 



pared to start. While this preparation was going on, 

 Sverdrup and I went ashore to have a look after rein- 

 deer. The snow was lying thick, and if it had not been 

 so wet we could have used our snow-shoes. As it was, 

 we tramped about in the heavy slush without them, and 

 without seeing so much as the track of a beast of any 

 kind. A forlorn land, indeed ! Most of the birds of 

 passage had already taken their way south ; we had met 

 small flocks of them at sea. They were collecting for 

 the great flight to the sunshine, and we poor souls could 

 not help wishing that it were possible to send news and 

 greeting with them. A few solitary Arctic and ordinary 

 gulls were our only company now. One day I found a 

 belated straggler of a goose sitting on the edge of 

 the ice. 



We steamed south in the evening, but still followed by 

 the dead water. According to Nordenskiold's map, it 

 was only about 20 miles to Taimur Strait, but we were 

 the whole night doing this distance. Our speed was 

 reduced to about a fifth part of what it would otherwise 

 have been. At 6 a.m. (September 3rd) we got in among 

 some thin ice that scraped the dead water off us. The 

 change was noticeable at once. As the Frarn cut into 

 the ice crust she gave a sort of spring forward, and, after 

 this, went on at her ordinary speed ; and henceforth we 

 had very little more trouble with dead water. 



We found what, according to the map, was Taimur 

 Strait, entirely blocked with ice, and we held farther 



N 



