20 NEAREST THE POLE 



walrus and two whales were seen. The day has been 

 one of typical Disco Bay summer weather. 



Saturday, Aug. ^th. — A perfect Arctic summer night, 

 clear and brilliant. At two this morning we passed 

 Godhavn, the little place lying under the southward- 

 facing cliffs of Disco, which is the capital of the northern 

 inspectorate of Greenland. Here, nineteen years ago, 

 I got my first taste of Arctic life, and made plans and 

 indulged in dreams some of which have since 

 materialised and others may. Several times since 

 then I have anchored in the harbour, till I know 

 the little settlement as I do the streets of Washington. 



Though we are now over three degrees beyond the 

 Arctic Circle, I am sitting in my cabin, with window 

 and ports open, in my shirt sleeves, wearing clothing 

 I wore in New York before I left, writing in entire 

 comfort. 



Later, a light breeze from the westward, keen after 

 its passage over the middle pack, makes the blue 

 waters look like frosted steel, and sharpens the western 

 cliffs of Disco, along which we are steaming, into 

 almost startling clearness. 



At noon we are off Hare Island and passing through 

 a fleet of large bergs, the output of the Tossuketek 

 glacier, which I visited in 1886, through the Waigatt. 

 We are ten days from Sydney to the Waigatt. 



Sunday, Aug. 6th. — An hour or two of fog at mid- 

 night, then overcast, with a light following breeze, 

 barely enough to fill the sails at first, then freshens 

 from southwest and brings up a sea which would give 



