SECOND AUTUMN IN THE ICE 5^9 



" Friday, October 26th. Yesterday evening we were 

 in 82° 3' north latitude. To-day the Fram is two years 

 old. The sky has been overcast during the last two 

 days, and it has been so dark at midday that I thought 

 w-e should soon have to stop our snow-shoe expeditions. 

 But this morning brought us clear still weather, and I 

 went out on a delightful trip to the westward, where 

 there had been a good deal of fresh packing, but noth- 

 ing of any importance. In honor of the occasion we had 

 a particularly good dinner, with fried halibut, turtle, pork 

 chops, with haricot beans and green pease, plum-pudding 

 (real burning plum-pudding for the first time) with cus- 

 tard sauce, and wound up with strawberries. As usual, 

 the beverages consisted of wine (that is to say, lime-juice, 

 with water and sugar) and Crown malt extract. I fear 

 there was a general overtaxing of the digestive appara- 

 tus. After dinner, coffee and honey-cakes, with which 

 Nordahl stood cigarettes. General holiday. 



" This evening it has begun to blow from the north, 

 but probably this does not mean much ; I must hope so, 

 at all events, and trust that we shall soon get a south 

 wind again. But it is not the mild zephyr we yearn for, 

 not the breath of the blushing dawn. No, a cold, biting 

 south wind, roaring with all the force of the Polar Sea, 

 so that the Fram, the two-year-old Fram, may be buried 

 in the snow-storm, and all around her be but a reeking 

 frost — it is this we are waiting for, this that will drift us 

 onward to our goal. To-day, then, Fram, thou art two 



