ladies to accompany us, but 
neither has since had cause to 
regret having taken them, they 
having stood the cruise sur¬ 
prisingly well. Mrs. Holmes 
and Mrs. Fleischmann both 
bear testimony, cheerfully, that 
they gathered a great 
deal of pleasure, and, 
if anything, received 
considerable benefit 
from their novel ex¬ 
perience. 
As to time hang¬ 
ing heavily on our 
IN MY SPITZBERGEN ATTIRE 
hands, in regard to 
which we are often 
asked, and as to how we managed to amuse ourselves and to 
kill what some of our inquirers termed “the dullness of it,— 
so far as the writer is concerned, there was not one dull 
moment during the trip, and in this statement he enjoys the 
hearty second of all the rest. 
As soon as one is well in the ice, there is always the 
interesting anticipation of what is next to happen. 
Even during a heavy Arctic fog, which sometimes lasts 
two or three days at a time, and which necessitates tying 
up to an ice-floe, one can not get dull. An overly-anxious 
Arctic traveler may chafe or fret a bit because of unavoid¬ 
able delays at not being able to make progress toward his 
destination, but he or she of philosophic mind will sit down 
and play a few rubbers of bridge or listen to the musical 
grind of the phonograph. Far be it from me to say that 
any of my party were philosophers, nor were they the 
sons or daughters of philosophers; but we found that we 
could endure the fretting, and still fight off the ennui quite 
successfully, because of our more or less expert knowledge 
of cards, and our fondness for music. A phonograph is a great 
source of pleasure, indeed, on a trip of this kind, and enables 
a befogged or ice-bound party to pass hours pleasantly which 
might otherwise be set down as “dull.” 
