LAND AT LAST 449 



turned his shirt and put the outside shirt next him ; I 

 have done the same, and then I have changed my draw- 

 ers, and put on the others that I had wrung out in warm 

 water. And I have washed myself, too, in a quarter of 

 a cup of warm water, with the discarded drawers as 

 sponge and towel. Now I feel quite another being; my 

 clothes do not stick to my body as much as they did. 

 Then for supper we had ' fiskegratin,' made of powdered 

 fish and maize-meal, with train-oil to it instead of butter, 

 both fried and boiled (one as dry as the other), and for 

 dessert we had bread fried in train-oil. To-morrow 

 morning we are going to have chocolate and bread."* 



"Wednesday, December 25th. We have got lovely 

 Christmas weather, hardly any wind, and such bright, 

 beautiful moonlight. It gives one quite a solemn feel- 

 ing. It is the peace of thousands of years. In the af- 

 ternoon the northern lights were exceptionally beautiful. 

 When I came out at 6 o'clock there was a bright, pale- 

 yellow bow in the southern sk)^ It remained for a long 

 time almost unchanged, and then began to grow much 

 brighter at the upper margin of the bow behind the 

 mountain crests in the east. It smouldered for some 

 time, and then all at once light darted out westward 

 along the bow ; streamers shot up all along it towards 

 the zenith, and in an instant the whole of the southern 



* Christmas -eve and New - year's - eve were the only occasions on 

 which we allowed ourselves to take any of the provisions which we were 

 keeping for our journey southward. 

 II.-29 



