39^ FARTHEST NORTH 



having clear, bright weather. Yes, it is all very well — 

 we snow-shoe, sledge, read both for instruction and 

 amusement, write, take observations, play cards, chat, 

 smoke, play chess, eat and drink; but all the same it is 

 an execrable life in the lonor-run, this — at least, so it 

 seems to me at times. When I look at the picture of our 

 beautiful home in the evening light, with my wife stand- 

 ing in the garden, I feel as if it were impossible that this 

 could go on much longer. But only the merciless fates 

 know when we shall stand there together again, feeling all 

 life's sweetness as we look out over the smiling fjord, and 

 . . . Taking everything into calculation, if I am to be per- 

 fectly honest, I think this is a wretched state of matters. 

 We are now in about 80^ north latitude, in September we 

 were in 79°; that is, let us say, one degree for five months. 

 If we go on at this rate we shall be at the Pole in forty-five, 

 or say fifty, months, and in ninety or one hundred months 

 at 80° north latitude on the other side of it, with probably 

 some prospect of getting out of the ice and home in a 

 month or two more. At best, if things go on as they are 

 doing now, we shall be home in eight years. I remember 

 Brogger writing before I left, when I was planting small 

 bushes and trees in the garden for future generations, 

 that no one knew what length of shadows these trees 

 would cast by the time I came back. Well, they are 

 lying under the winter snow now, but in spring they will 

 shoot and orrow aq;ain — how often } Oh ! at times this 

 inactivity crushes one's very soul ; one's life seems as 



