THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF i8g4 523 



round at full speed ; but this did not alarm him at all ; 

 very likely it was this very thing he wanted to examine. 

 At last he reached the lane in front, w^hen they both fired 

 and he fell down dead on the spot. It was nice to get 

 fresh meat again. This was the first bear we had shot 

 this year, and of course we had roast bear for dinner to- 

 day. Regular winter with snow-storms. 



"Wednesday, August 29th. A fresh wind; it ratdes 

 and pipes in the rigging aloft. An enlivening change and 

 no mistake ! The snow drifts as if it were midwinter. 

 Fine August weather! But we are bearing north again, 

 and we have need to ! Yesterday our latitude was 80° 

 53.5'. This evening I was standing in the hold at work 

 on my new bamboo kayak, which will be the very acme 

 of lightness. Pettersen happened to come down, and gave 

 me a hand with some lashings that I was busy with. We 

 chatted a little about things in general; and he was of 

 opinion ' that we had a good crib of it on board the Fram, 

 because here we had everything we wanted, and she was 

 a devil of a ship — and any other ship would have been 

 crushed flat long ago.' But for all that he would not be 

 afraid, he said, to leave her, when he saw all the contriv- 

 ances, such as these new kayaks, we had been getting 

 ready. He was sure no former expedition had ever had 

 such contrivances, or been so equipped against all possi- 

 ble emergencies as we. But, after all, he would prefer to 

 return home on the Frani^ Then we talked about what 

 we should do when we did get home. 



