560 FAR THE S2' NORTH 



up mast and sail on our canoes, and get afloat. We 

 sailed till the morning, when the wind went down, and 

 then we landed on the shore-ice again and camped.* 



" I am as happy as a child in the thought that we are 

 now at last really on the west coast of Franz Josef Land, 

 with open water before us, and independent of ice and 

 currents. 



" Wednesday, August 24th. The vicissitudes of this 

 life will never come to an end. When I wrote last I was 

 full of hope and courage ; and here we are stopped by 

 stress of weather for four days and three nights, with the 

 ice packed as tight as it can be against the coast. We 

 see nothing but piled-up ridges, hummocks, and broken 

 ice in all directions. Courage is still here, but hope — 

 the hope of soon being home — that was relinquished a 

 long time ago, and before us lies the certainty of a long, 

 dark winter in these surroundings. 



"It was at midnight between the 17th and i8th that we 

 set off from our last camping-ground in splendid weather. 

 Though it was cloudy and the sun invisible, there was 

 along the horizon in the north the most glorious ruddy 

 glow with golden sun - tipped clouds, and the sea lay 

 shining and dreamy in the distance : a marvellous night. 

 . . . On the surface of the sea, smooth as a mirror, 

 without a block of ice as far as the eye could reach, glided 

 the kayaks, the water purling off the paddles at every 



* Off Bruprrer's Foreland. 



