98 ON THE WAY TO THE SOUTH 



for a time with being driven on to the Irish coast. 

 It was not quite so bad as that, but we soon found 

 ourselves obliged to shorten the route originally laid 

 down very considerably. A contributing cause of this 

 determination was the fact that the motor was out of 

 order. Whether it was the fault of the oil or a defect 

 in the engine itself our engineer was not clear. It was 

 therefore necessary to make for home in good time, in 

 case of extensive repairs being required. In spite of 

 these difficulties, we had a quite respectable collection 

 of samples of water and temperatures at different depths 

 before we set our course for Norway at the beginning of 

 July, with Bergen as our destination. 



During the passage from the Pentland Firth we had 

 a violent gale from the north, which gave us an oppor- 

 tunity of experiencing how the Fram behaved in bad 

 weather. The trial was by no means an easy one. It 

 was blowing a gale, with a cross sea; we kept going 

 practically under full sail, and had the satisfaction of 

 seeing our ship make over nine knots. In the rather 

 severe rolling the collar of the mast in the fore-cabin 

 was loosened a little; this let the water in, and there 

 was a slight flooding of Lieutenant Nilsen's cabin and 

 mine. The others, whose berths were to port, were on 

 the weather side, and kept dry. We came out of it all 

 with the loss of a few boxes of cigars, which were wet 

 through. They were not entirely lost for all that ; Ronne 

 took charge of them, and regaled himself with salt and 



