“There is scarcely any night, or rather I may safely say there is no night, on which no trace of aurora can be discerned as soon as the sky becomes clear, or even when there is simply a rift in the clouds large enough for it to be seen; and as a rule we have strong light phenomena dancing in ceaseless unrest over the firmament. They mainly appear, however, in the southern part of the sky.
“Friday, October 19th. A fresh breeze from E.S.E. Drifting northward at a good pace. Soon we shall probably have passed the long-looked-for 82°, and that will not be far from 82° 27′, when the Fram will be the vessel that will have penetrated farthest to the north on this globe. But the barometer is falling; the wind probably will not remain in that quarter long, but will shift round to the west. I only hope for this once the barometer may prove a false prophet. I have become rather sanguine; things have been going pretty well for so long; and October, a month which last year’s experience had made me dread, has been a month of marked advance, if only it doesn’t end badly.
“The wind to-day, however, was to cost a life. The mill, which had been repaired after the mishap to the cog-wheel the other day, was set going again. In the afternoon a couple of the puppies began fighting over a bone, when one of them fell underneath one of the cog-wheels on the axle of the mill, and was dragged in between it and the deck. Its poor little body nearly made the whole thing come to a standstill; and, unfortunately, no one was on the spot to stop it in time. I heard the noise, and rushed on deck; the puppy had just been drawn out nearly dead; the whole of its stomach was torn open. It gave a faint whine, and was at once put out of its misery. Poor little frolicsome creature! Only a little while ago you were gambolling around, enjoying an innocent romp with your brothers and sisters; then came the thigh-bone of a bear trundling along the deck from the galley; you and the others made a headlong rush for it, and now there you lie, cruelly lacerated and dead as a herring. Fate is inexorable!
“Sunday, October 31st. North latitude 82° 0.2′; east longitude 114° 9′. It is late in the evening, and my head is bewildered, as if I had been indulging in a regular debauch, but it was a debauch of a very innocent nature.
“A grand banquet to-day to celebrate the eighty-second degree of latitude. The observation gave 82° 0.2′ last night, and we have now certainly drifted a little farther north. Honey-cakes (gingerbread) were baked for the occasion first-class honey-cakes, too, you may take my word for it; and then, after a refreshing snow-shoe run, came a festal banquet. Notices were stuck up in the saloon requesting the guests to be punctual at dinner-time, for the cook had exerted himself to the utmost of his power. The following deeply felt lines by an anonymous poet also appeared on a placard:
“‘When dinner is punctually served at the time,
No fear that the milk soup will surely be prime;
But the viands are spoiled if you come to it late,
The fish-pudding will lie on your chest a dead weight;
What’s preserved in tin cases, there can be no doubt,