THE WONDERFUL DRIFT 65 



Northern Asia. What happened was that during the 

 afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north- 

 west coast of Novaya Zemlya in 76 22' north, 63 3' 

 east, the ship was run into an ice-hole and made fast 

 to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of part- 

 ing asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she 

 never steamed or sailed again. In the ice and on the 

 ice she lay perfectly helpless, drifting with the floe, 

 and still in its grip when she was abandoned by her 

 crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards. 



It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the 

 main to begin with, then north-westerly, then easterly 

 to about 73, then north, then west, in and out and 

 roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude 

 as they started from and then with a general tendency to 

 the northward. Autumn passed away ; the Polar night 

 set in ; and still they drifted ice-bound a miscellaneous 

 company representative of the polyglot empire ; "on 

 board the Tegetthqff" says Payer, " are heard all the 

 languages of our country, German, Italian, Slavonic, 

 and Hungarian ; Italian is, however, the language in 

 which all orders are given," to which we should add 

 the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the icemaster. During 

 the winter there was enough of occupation and amuse- 

 ment, though private theatricals were impossible, as 

 they would have had to be given in four languages to 

 be intelligible to the audience. 



The short summer came and went, and August had 

 almost gone when it was on the 30th, in 79 43' there 

 came a surprise. The rays of the sun were fitfully 

 breaking through the gloom when suddenly the glid- 

 ing mists rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the 



