26-i THE GERMAN AECTIC EXPEDITION. 



soon more and more distinct tidings followed. On tlie 

 3rd of September, the same day that through the home 

 provinces, indeed through the whole of Europe, the news 

 of the night battle of Sedan flew, we trod on German 

 soil, coming through Friedericia in Schleswig. Flags 

 were everywhere displayed. In the evening, every 

 suburb we reached was illuminated, until we entered 

 Hamburg in time to witness the great illumination in 

 celebration of the victories, and thus greeted our country, 

 as it were, in triumph. 



Thus we all stood again on native soil ; and after so 

 much distress and danger, we had the happiness, scarcely 

 hoped for in many weary hours, of shaking hands with 

 relations and friends. We should certainly have pre- 

 ferred it, had we, like the Germania later on, been able 

 to run into Bremen harbour with our good ship, instead 

 of coming into Bremen in an express car by the east gate 

 from Hamburg ; but it was so destined. And now that 

 all is done, and our fate accomplished by a higher power, 

 may all murmuring as to the right or wrong be far 

 from us. 



As the consciousness of honourably fulfilling one's duty 

 is comforthig, so we Hansa men will quietly await the 

 judgment of our contemporaries. We cannot flatter our- 

 selves that we have greatly increased the knowledge of 

 Greenland ; but we have shown what man's nature can 

 bear, and what man's strength and perseverance can 

 accomplish. 



The narrator closes this account with the hope that 

 he has succeeded in rendering these extraordinary adven- 

 tures, which must always be unique in their kind, 

 interesting to the reader. 



