42 FARTHEST NORTH 



while far away outside in the night there is nothing save 

 death and silence, only broken now and then, at long 

 intervals, by the violent pressure of the ice as it surges 

 alone in eisantic masses. It sounds most ominous in 

 the great stillness, and one cannot help an uncanny 

 feeling as if supernatural powers were at hand, the 

 Jotuns and Rimturser (frost-giants) of the Arctic regions, 

 with whom we may have to engage in deadly combat at 

 any moment ; but we are not afraid of them. 



"I often think of Shakespeare's Viola, who sat 'like 

 Patience on a monument.' Could we not pass as repre- 

 sentatives of this marble Patience, imprisoned here on 

 the ice while the years roll by, awaiting our time } I 

 should like to design such a monument. It should be a 

 lonely man in shaggy wolfskin clothing, all covered with 

 hoar-frost, sitting on a mound of ice, and gazing out into 

 the darkness across these boundless, ponderous masses of 

 ice, awaiting the return of daylight and spring. 



" The ice-pressure was not noticeable after i o'clock 

 on Friday night until it suddenly recommenced last 

 nio-ht. First I heard a rumblins: outside, and some 

 snow fell down from the rigging upon the tent roof as I 

 sat reading; I thought it sounded like packing in the 

 ice, and just then the Fram received a violent shock, 

 such as she had not received since last winter. I was 

 rocked backward and forward on the chest on which I 

 was sitting. Finding that the trembling and rumbling 

 continued, I went out. There was a loud roar of ice- 



