VOYAGE THROUGH THE KARA SEA 199 



without seeing so much as the track of a beast of any 

 kind. A forlorn land, indeed ! Most of the birds of 

 passage had already taken their way south ; we had met 

 small flocks of them at sea. They were collecting for 

 the great flight to the sunshine, and we, poor souls, could 

 not help wishing that it were possible to send news and 

 greeting with them. A few solitary Arctic and ordinary 

 gulls were our only company now. One day I found a 

 belated straggler of a goose sitting on the edge of 

 the ice. 



We steamed south in the evening, but still followed 

 by the dead-water. According to Nordenskibld s map, it 

 w^as only about 20 miles to Taimur Strait, but we were 

 the w4iole night doing this distance. Our speed was 

 reduced to about a fifth part of what it would otherwise 

 have been. At 6 a.m. (September 3d) we got in among 

 some thin ice that scraped tlie dead-water off us. The 

 change was noticeable at once. As the Frain cut into 

 the ice crust she gave a sort of spring forward, and, after 

 this, went on at her ordinary speed ; and henceforth we 

 had very little more trouble with dead-water. 



We found what, according to the map, was Taimur 

 Strait entirely blocked with ice, and w^e held farther 

 south, to see if we could not come upon some other 

 strait or passage. It was not an easy matter finding 

 our way by the map. We had not seen Hovgaard's 

 Islands, marked as lying north of the entrance to Tai- 

 mur Strait ; yet the weather was so beautifully clear 



