The Winter Night. 337 



harpoon and rifle. But the harpoon and line were stored 

 away, and were not to be had at once ; who could 

 have guessed that they would be needed here ? The 

 harpoon point had to be sharpened, and all this took 

 time. And for all our searching afterwards east and 

 west along the opening, no walrus was to be found. 

 Goodness knows where it had gone, as there are hardly 

 any openings in the ice for a long distance round, 

 Sverdrup and I vainly fret over not having known at 

 once what kind of animal it was, for if we had only 

 guessed we should have him now. But who expects 

 to meet a walrus on close ice in the middle of a wild 

 sea of a thousand fathoms depth, and that in the heart 

 of winter ? None of us ever heard of such a thing" 

 before ; it is a perfect mystery. As I thought we 

 might have come upon shoals or into the neighbour- 

 hood of land, I had soundings taken in the afternoon 

 with 130 fathoms (240 metres) of line, but no bottom 

 was found. 



" By yesterday's observations we are in 79 41' N. lat, 

 and 135 29' E. long. That is good progress north, 

 and it does not much matter that we have been taken 

 a little west. The clouds are driving this evening- 

 before a strong south wind, so \ve shall likely be going' 

 before it soon too ; in the meantime there is a breeze 

 from the south, so slight that you hardly feel it. 



"The opening on our stern lies almost east and west, 

 \Ve could see no end to it westwards when we went 



z 



