346 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
serious obstacles. We fell in also with some very large ice¬ 
floes, but not. with any icebergs. We were besides again 
attended by so close a mist that we could only see ice-fields 
and pieces of ice in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
vessel. Besides species of Lestris and kittiwakes we now 
also saw looms, birds that are almost wanting in the Kara 
Sea. Johannesen was of opinion that the presence of these 
birds showed that the sea is not completely frozen over in 
winter, because it is not probable that the loom in autumn and 
spring would fly across the frozen Kara Sea to seek in this 
distant region their food and their breeding-haunts. 
The night before the 22nd we steamed through pretty close 
ice. The whole day so thick a fog still prevailed that we could 
not see the extent of the ice-fields in the neighbourhood of the 
vessel. Towards noon we were, therefore, compelled to take 
a more southerly course. When we found that we could not 
advance in this direction, we lay-to at a large ice-floe, waiting 
for clear weather, until in the afternoon the fog again lightened 
somewhat, so that we could continue our voyage. But it was 
not long before the fog again became so thick that, as the 
sailors say, you could cut it with a knife. There was now 
evidently a risk that the Vega, while thus continuing to '‘box the 
compass” in the ice-labyrinth, in which we had entangled our¬ 
selves, would meet with the same fate that befell the Tegetthoff. 
In order to avoid this, it became necessary to abandon our 
attempt to sail from Cape Chelyuskin straight to the New 
Siberian Islands, and to endeavour to reach as soon as possible 
the open water at the coast. 
When it cleared on the morning of the 23rd, we therefore 
began again to steam forward among the fields of drift-ice, but 
now not with the intention of advancing in a given direction, 
but only of getting to open water. The ice-fields we now met 
with were very much broken up, which was an indication that 
we could not be very far from the edge of the gmck. But 
