A FROZEN SUMMER. 411 



failure to do the specified thing stands out in bold let- 

 ters. So with us. We started for the Pole ; we are be- 

 set in the pack in 71° plus ; we drift northwest ; our 

 ship is injured, and we have to burn coal to save her ; 

 we drift back southeast ; we are passing our second sum- 

 mer more unprofitably than our first, for then we were 

 movino-. No matter how much we have endured, no 

 matter how often we have been in jeopardy, no matter 

 that we bring the ship and ourselves back to our start- 

 ing-point, no matter if we were absent ten years in- 

 stead of one, — we have failed, inasmuch as we did not 

 reach the Pole ; and we and our narratives together are 

 thrown into the world's dreary waste-basket, and re- 

 called and remembered only to be vilified or ridiculed. 



And yet I would not wish to be understood as imply- 

 ing we have given up the fight. We look for to-mor- 

 row with just the same fliith and with as great expec- 

 tations as we did on the 1st of June. But we do not 

 spend to-day in idleness for all that. A full meteoro- 

 logical record is kept, soundings are taken, the dredge 

 is hauled, specific gravities and sea temperatures are 

 taken, astronomical observations made and positions 

 computed, dip and declination of the needle observed 

 and recorded, experiments made with ice and snow and 

 surface water, birds shot and skinned, seals hunted, 

 mechanics employed, ship's routine carried out, etc. ; 

 everything we can do is done as faithfully, as strictly, 

 as mathematically as if we were at the Pole itself, or the 

 lives of millions depended on our adherence to routine. 

 Not a word is said about going back. Occasionally a 

 trip is proposed somewhere, — to Paris, to Naples, to the 

 West Indies, — to come off " one of these days when we 

 get back." We go on with the regularity of a man- 

 of-war in port. We look upon this place — the pack 



