A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEEGEN, ETC. 139 



Capt. Elling Caiisen, Knight of St. Olaf, etc., etc., joined the 

 "Pallas." This veteran Arctic seaman, who in 1863 was the 

 first circumnavigator of Spitzbergen, and of Novaya Zemlya in 

 1871, on the latter voyage discovered the remains of the Wil- 

 helm Barentz Expedition of 1594, which had lain there unvisited 

 and undisturbed, save by bears, for two hundred and seventy- 

 seven years. Carlsen was also ice-pilot of the ill-fated Austrian 

 Expedition, which in the "Tegethoff" involuntarily discovered 

 Franz Josef Land in 1874. We also shipped two whale boats 

 with their crews, under Kjeldsen and Johannesen, both names 

 known in Arctic exploration; and, finally, had a '' crow's nest" 

 fitted to our fore-top mast. 



During these preparations I utilised the time to visit the high 

 fjelds above Tromso, and in a wood of stunted birch found a 

 colony of Fieldfares breeding. Most nests contained haK-grown 

 young (July 20th), but eventually I found one with five eggs, 

 as well as two or three addled eggs in other nests, and two nests 

 of the Mealy Redpole, Linaria cmiescens, with young. Ravens 

 were numerous, and we also obtained a fine specimen of the 

 "White-tailed Sea-Eagle, Halidehis alhicilla, in immature plumage. 

 Its claws having become inextricably fixed in the carcase of a 

 dead Cod-fish on which it had gorged itself, it was unable to rise. 



The sun at this point disappeared for about an hour at mid- 

 night, but there was no darkness whatever. The surface tem- 

 perature of the water in the fjord varied from 49° to 51°, and 

 we continued sea bathing up to this poiat. 



On the 23rd we weighed anchor, and steaming through the 

 inhospitable-looking northern fjords, entered the Arctic Sea, and 

 shaped our course for Spitzbergen, distant four hundred and 

 eighty miles North. Early next morning the peculiar pale yel- 

 low streak of light known as '^ice-blink," low on the northern 

 horizon, indicated the presence of ice in that direction ; and at 

 noon, latitude 72° 8" north, we ran up to an extensive floe, 

 extending east and west as far as the eye could reach. During 

 the next twelve hours our course included almost every point of 

 the compass ; but we eventually cleared the ice, and next morn- 

 ing the desolate snow-clad mountains of Bear Island were in 



