XI] 
POPULAR LECTURES. 
7 
During the severe cold the ice naturally became thicker and 
thicker; and by the continual northerly winds still higher 
torosses were heaped up round the vessel, and larger and larger 
snow masses were collected between it and the land, and on the 
heights along the coast. All hopes or fears of an early release 
were again given up, and a perceptible dullness began to make 
itself felt after the bustle and festivities of the Christmas 
holidays. Instead there was now arranged a series of popular 
lectures which were held in the lower deck, and treated of the 
history of the North-East Passage, the first circumnavigations of 
the globe, the Austrian-Hungarian Expedition, the changes of 
the earth’s surface, the origin of man, the importance of. the 
leaf to the plants, &c. It became both for the officers and 
scientific men and the crew a little interruption to the monotony 
of the Arctic winter life, and the lecturer could always be certain 
of finding his little auditory all present and highly interested. 
Some slight attempts at musical evening entertainments were 
also made, but these failed for want of musical instruments and 
musical gifts among the Vega men. We had among us no 
suitable director of theatrical representations after the English- 
Arctic pattern, and even if we had had, I fear that the director 
would have found it very difficult to gather together the 
dramatic talents requisite for his entertainment. 
On the 17th February Lieutenant Brusewitz made an 
excursion to Najtskaj, of which he gives the following 
account:— 
“ I and Notti left the vessel in the afternoon, and after two 
hours came to Birajtinop, Notti’s home; where we passed the 
night, together with his three younger brothers and an invalid 
sister, who all lived in the same tent-chamber. Immediately 
after our arrival one of the brothers began to get the dog-harness 
and sleigh ready for the following day’s journey, while the rest 
of us went into the interior of the tent, where the ins^alid sister 
lay with her clothes off, but wrapt in reindeer skins. She took 
