To eat next Christmas dinner beyond the North Pole.’
“During the evening we were regaled with pineapple, figs, cakes, and other sweets, and about midnight Hansen brought in toddy, and Nordahl cigars and cigarettes. At the moment of the passing of the year all stood up and I had to make an apology for a speech—to the effect that the old year had been, after all, a good one, and I hoped the new would not be worse; that I thanked them for good comradeship, and was sure that our life together this year would be as comfortable and pleasant as it had been during the last. Then they sang the songs that had been written for the farewell entertainments given to us at Christiania and at Bergen:
“‘Our mother, weep not! it was thou
Gave them the wish to wander;
To leave our coasts and turn their prow
Towards night and perils yonder.
Thou pointedst to the open sea,
The long cape was thy finger;
The white sail wings they got from thee;
Thou canst not bid them linger!