310 THE VOYAGE OF THE " FRAM " 



" The wind increased and the seas ran higher, but 

 we did not ship much water. At 8 a.m. the barometer 

 was 28"30 inches (719 milhmetres), and at 9 a.m. 

 28'26 inches (718 milhmetres), when at last it stopped 

 going down and remained steady till about noon, during 

 which time a furious hurricane was blowing. The clouds 

 were brown, the colour of chocolate ; I cannot remember 

 ever having seen such an ugly sky. Little by little the 

 wind went to the north, and we sailed large under two 

 storm-trysails. Finally, we had the seas on our beam, 

 and now the Fram showed herself in all her glory as the 

 best sea-boat in the world. It was extraordinary to 

 watch how she behaved. Enormous seas came surging 

 high to windward, and we, who were standing on the 

 bridge, turned our backs to receive them, with some 

 such remark as : ' Ugh, that's a nasty one coming.* But 

 the sea never came. A few yards from the ship it 

 looked over the bulwarks and got ready to hurl itself 

 upon her. But at the last moment the Fram gave 

 a wriggle of her body and was instantly at the top of 

 the wave, which slipped under the vessel. Can anyone 

 be surprised if one gets fond of such a ship? Then she 

 went down with the speed of lightning from the top of 

 the wave into the trough, a fall of fourteen or fifteen 

 yards. When we sank like this, it gave one the same 

 feeling as dropping from the twelfth to the ground-floor 

 in an American express elevator, ' as if everything inside 

 you was coming up.' It was so quick that we seemed 



