12 NEW LAND. 



and carefully to wind her way. At this juncture we were obliged 

 to put two men to the wheel, and the word of command was never 

 ceasing. When the ice was at its worst, and the navigation most 

 difficult, I found it necessary to command the ship from the crow's- 

 nest, a hundred feet above the deck of the ' Fram.' In clear weather, 

 one can see a great distance from this height, and it is therefore 

 easier when in ice-bound waters to fix a course from it than from 

 the deck. 



In these difficult circumstances it is needless to say that we 

 did not make much progress, but the weather was fine and the 

 water as smooth as a mill-pond. > The seals slept on the floes 

 around us, gulls and kittiwakes 'circled round the vessel, and all 

 on board were in high spirits. 



About eleven in the forenoon we moored the ' Fram ' to a big 

 floe, and went ' ashore,' to take in water from a large freshwater 

 pool in the middle of it. All the members fell to work with 

 zeal, and many of them enjoyed the sensation of having ' dry 

 land ' underfoot after the long voyage across the Atlantic. 



In the afternoon we started off again, to discover that the ice 

 was jamming hard. Every moment the floes struck against the 

 ship: the smaller ones she haughtily thrust aside, but for the 

 larger she was compelled to give way and go out of her course, 

 heavy as she is in build. Towards evening the ice became still 

 closer, but early the next morning we got into open water south of 

 Cape Farewell, and therewith our sojourn in the drift-ice was over 

 for the present. 



We then set a course westward, and afterwards north-west and 

 north, along the west coast of Greenland, keeping well out at sea 

 to avoid the icebergs, which were continually in sight. 



An iceberg is not a thing to be trifled with ; many of these 

 were as much as a hundred feet above the surface of the water, 

 and as every cubic foot of ice above water corresponds to seven 

 cubic feet below, it is no difficult matter to calculate the size of 

 these monsters. One of them was so large that Peder Hendriksen, 

 who was a great hand at telliDg 'true stories,' tried, though needless 

 to say in vain, to make his companions believe we were passing 

 a newly discovered island. 



