BY SLEDGE AND KAYAK 237 



Now the morrow has come, but whether the improve- 

 ment has come likewise, and the lane has closed more to- 

 gether, I do not yet know. W'e camped about nine yester- 

 day evening. As usual latterly, after nearly a whole day of 

 dismal snow, it suddenly cleared up as soon as we beo-an 

 to pitch the tent. The wind also went down, and the 

 weather became beautiful, with blue sky and light white 

 clouds, so that one might almost dream one's self far away 

 to summer at home. The horizon in the west and south- 

 west was clear enough, but nothing to be seen except the 

 same water-sky, which we have been steering for, and, 

 happily, it is obviously higher, so we are getting under it. 

 If only we had reached it ! Yonder there must be a 

 change; that I have no doubt of. How I long for that 

 change ! 



" Curious how different things are. If we only reach 

 land before our provisions give out we shall think our- 

 selves well out of danger, while to Payer it stood for 

 certain starvation if he should have to remain there and 

 not find Tegethoff again. But then he had not been 

 roaming about in the drift-ice between 83° and 86° for two 

 months and a half without seeing a living creature. Just 

 as were going to break up camp yesterday morning we 

 suddenly heard the angry cry of an ivory gull ; there, 

 above us, beautiful and white, were two of them sailing 

 right over our heads. I thought of shooting them, but it 

 seemed, on the whole, hardly worth while to expend a 

 cartridge apiece on such birds ; they disappeared again, 



