evil amounts to. Along our Atlantic coast fog is bad enough, 
but there the navigator may usually steer dead reckoning on, 
or else drop anchor. 
In the Arctics, on the other hand, after days of toil, you 
approach your goal; rarely in a direct course, however, and 
at an approximate speed of two to two and one-half knots 
per hour. That is good progress, and hopes run high in the 
hearts of all. 
The promised land is near! 
Then, of a sudden, fog lasting from six to—in our case— 
sixty-four hours, sets in, and, fastened with an ice-anchor to 
the nearest floe, the ship lies helpless, the crew keeping her 
free as possible from the surrounding drift-ice. All the while 
one realizes she is drifting from course at an approximate rate 
of one and one-half knots per hour—away from the point she 
has striven so hard to attain! 
It is because of this that Arctic work entails more pa¬ 
tience and fortitude than any other hunts I have experienced. 
On July 30th we made a stop for fresh water, and another 
to shoot a stor-kobbe. Then, the very last of July, the sun 
appeared, bringing hope in his wake, as he filled the scene 
with brilliance. 
Taking time by the forelock, Learmonth and Carl enjoyed 
a splendid peep at forbidden Greenland from the mizzen-top, 
though we lay forty miles still from her coasts and far west 
of the position we should have occupied. A belt of very 
densely packed ice stood between us and the stretch of open 
sea, on the other hand. 
Fog, close to earth, prevented our finding a passage 
through this barrier. All the day we beat about, searching, 
but vainly. 
A bear—yellow, not white, as seen against the ice—ap¬ 
peared, then vanished in fog banks. 
So July went out, in the Arctics! 
July 30 th 
July 31st 
[67] 
