574 FARl^HESJ' NORTH 



and by the ship's company. We went below into the 

 roomy, snu"' cabin, and all kinds of news were eao'erlv 

 swallowed by listening ears, while an excellent breakfast 

 with fresh potatoes and other delicacies glided down past 

 a palate which needed less than that to satisfy it. There 

 were remarkable pieces of news indeed. One of the first 

 was that now they could photograph people through 

 doors several inches thick. I confess I pricked up my 

 ears at this information. That they could photograph 

 a bullet buried in a person's body was wonderful too, 

 but nothing to this. And then we heard that the 

 Japanese had thrashed the Chinese, and a good deal 

 more. Not least remarkable, we thought, was the in- 

 terest which the whole world now seemed to take in 

 the Arctic regions. Spitzbergen had become a tour- 

 ist country ; a Norwegian steamship company (the 

 V'esteraalen) had started a regular passenger service 

 to it,* a hotel had been built up there, and there was 

 a post-office and a Spitzbergen stamp. And then we 

 heard that Andree was there waiting for wind to go to 

 the Pole in a balloon. If we had pursued our course to 

 Spitzbergen we should thus have dropped into the very 

 middle of all this. W^e should have found a hotel and 

 tourists, and should have been brought home in a com- 

 fortable modern steamboat, very different from the whal- 

 ing-sloop we had been talking of all the winter, and, 



* I did not dream that Sverdrup a year after would be in command of 

 this steamer. 



