312 NEW LAND. 



The recipe alone was sufficiently promising champagne, brandy, 

 sugar, water, and fruit-juice and the result quite fulfilled the 

 promise. Our thoughts at this time were chiefly fixed on keeping 

 Christmas as well as possible; while Baumann's birthday, four 

 days later, was a reason the more to keep the ball rolling. 



Notwithstanding our Christmasing, we did not forget the obser- 

 vations. On December 29 the mate, Peder, and Isachsen began to 

 make a hole in the ice, and got everything in readiness for taking 

 the temperature of the water. During the whole of the -winter 

 Isachsen and the mate had taken a fortnightly series of tempera- 

 tures ; and Schei had taken samples of water at the same time. 

 When Peder recovered, he resumed his place as Schei's assistant. 



Then came New Year's Eve. Out of consideration for Simmons, 

 we again trooped off to the after-cabin to finish the evening. When 

 we were settled round the punch-bowl, Isachsen read aloud the 

 first and last number of the Friendly One for 1899. Again this 

 year Baumann had taken the initiative with regard to the paper. 

 Last year the doctor had edited it; for 1899 Baumann was the 

 responsible editor as well, and brought out, as aforesaid, the first 

 copy on the last day of the year, and that, too, as an 'Extra 

 Number.' The reading took some time, for the contents were 

 important and varied ; one volley of laughter succeeded another ; 

 nobody got off scot-free, and all the others hugely enjoyed the 

 good-natured hits at their comrades. 



At last, about twelve o'clock, we reached what the editor 

 called the ' ice-foot of the paper,' and he was rewarded with such 

 applause as has seldom or never fallen to the lot of a newspaper 

 editor from his subscribers. 



On the stroke of twelve Peder came tottering from his 

 cabin into the saloon, dressed up as an old woman ; the very 

 incarnation of everything worn out. In this guise he was 

 intended to represent the Old Year, and certainly he looked like 

 anything but a juvenile. Methuselah's wife herself could not 

 have looked older; the devil's great-grandmother might have 

 been his grandchild. He bewaiigd and lamented his age and 

 feebleness ; he groaned over the young people of the day, who 

 were growing more and more intolerant of the old, and anxious 



