6 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
on Aug. 4th at 11 a.m. after a rather unpleasant voyage with continual 
rain and headwinds. 
AAGAARD’S health had become still worse during this short trip, 
and it seemed too risky to take him any further, as a physician on Pa- 
trick’s Fjord had declared that in his opinion it would be impossible 
for AAGAARD to stand the strain of the voyage, which we were going 
to undertake. Consequently a telegram was dispatched to Commander 
BROCKMEYER, requesting him to send a substitute for AAGAARD, and 
the reply came at once — assistant engineer Iver P. IVERSEN was willing, 
and Н. М. 5. “Islands Falk” would come to us with the utmost speed 
possible. 
In the meantime we were occupied in trying to get everything 
into shape for the long journey, and particularly to get enough whale- 
meat for our forty-seven dogs. The Talknafjord whaling-station was 
not far away, and its manager gave us all the meat we wanted. 
Н. M.S. “Islands Falk” arrived on August 6th at 2 p.m., and the 
exchange of engineers was made, before we left Patrick’s Fjord, once 
more towed by the government steamer, the commander of which ren- 
dered us such valuable and manifold services that it is impossible to 
thank him adequately for it all. We were towed till the following day 
at noon, when we had reached 66°44’5 N. Lat. and 22°44’ W. Long. Here 
we parted company with H. M.S. “Islands Falk”, which went back 
towards Iceland with colours flying and saluting with her guns. 
The voyage from here to the place where we entered the ice was 
of no interest whatsoever. It was long and tedious owing to alternate 
headwinds and calms, which compelled us to use the motor almost 
every day, which test the splendid 16 H. P. Dan-Motor stood very 
well, going continually for six days without stopping once. Now and 
then we saw the ice, but we kept away to the eastward, whenever we 
came too close to it, until we finally entered the packice on August 17th, 
at 7a.m. on 75°13’ N. Lat. and 10°43’ W. Long. A gale was blowing, and 
the surf was very strong on the outer edge of the ice, but we thought 
it advisable to run the risk and headed in between the floes, hoping to 
be able to reach a large stretch of open water, which we could see beyond 
the densely packed outer edge. 
But the attempt failed, and we had not proceeded more than a 
few hundred metres, before the swell and the wind stopped the “Ala- 
bama’’, over which we then lost control. Immense masses of ice came 
down from the north and surrounded the ship so fast that in the course 
of three hours we could see no water out to sea. . 
These masses of ice quelled the swell to some extent, but the danger 
of losing the vessel was still very great. We tried to fend her off from 
the floes, using all the means at our disposal, but in vain; the large ice- 
foot projecting from the surrounding floes came underneath the bottom 
