Plate XI.
Moon-Ring with Mock Moons, and a Suggestion of Horizontal Axes, 24th November 1893. Pastel Sketch
An inverted arch above forms a tangent to the uppermost point of the moon-ring. Luminous patches are visible where the moon-rings and the vertical axis passing through the moon intersect the horizon.
“Weighed the bread yesterday; found we had 26 pounds 4 ounces of wheaten bread and 17 pounds 1 ounce of aleuronate bread; so, for that matter, we can manage for another thirty-five or forty days, and how far we shall then have got the gods alone know, but some part of the way it must be.
“Sunday, June 9th. We got away from our camping-ground at last yesterday, and we were more than pleased. In spite of the weather, which was as bad as it could be, with a raging snow-storm from the east, we were both glad to begin our wanderings again. It took some time to fix grips under the kayaks, consisting of sack, sleeping-bag, and blankets, and so load the sledges; but eventually we made a start. We got well off the floe we had lived on so long, and did not even have to use the kayaks which we had spent a week in patching for that purpose. The wind had carefully closed the lanes. We found flat ice-country, and made good way in spite of the most villanous going, with newly fallen snow, which stuck to one’s snow-shoes mercilessly, and in which the sledges stood as if fixed to the spot as soon as they stopped. The weather was such that one could not see many hundred feet in front of one, and the snow which accumulated on one’s clothes on the weather-side wetted one to the skin; but still it was glorious to see ourselves making progress—progress towards our stubborn goal. We came across a number of lanes, and they were difficult to cross, with their complicated net-work of cracks and ridges in all directions. Some of them were broad and full of brash, which rendered it impossible to use the kayaks. In some places, however, the brash was pressed so tightly together that we could walk on it. But many journeys to and fro are nearly always necessary before any reasonable opportunity of advance is to be found. This time is often long to the one who remains behind with the dogs, being blown through or wetted through meanwhile, as the case may be. Often, when it seemed as if I were never coming back, did Johansen think I had fallen through some lane and was gone for good. As one sits there on the kayak, waiting and waiting, and gazing in front of one into solitude, many strange thoughts pass through one’s brain. Several times he climbed the highest hummock near at hand to scan the ice anxiously; and then, when at last he discovered a little black speck moving about on the white flat surface far, far away, his mind would be relieved. As Johansen was waiting in this way yesterday, he remarked that the sides of the floe in front of him were slowly moving up and down,[3] as they might if rocked by a slight swell. Can open water be near? Can it be that the great breakers from the sea have penetrated in here? How willingly would we believe it! But perhaps it was only the wind which set the thin ice we are now travelling over in wave-like motion. Or have we really open water to the southeast? It is remarkable that this wind welds the ice together, while the southwest wind here a little while ago slackened it. When all is said, is it possible that we are not far from the sea? I cannot help thinking of the water-reflections we have seen on the sky before us. Johansen has just left the tent, and says that he can see the same reflection in the south; it is higher now, and the weather tolerably clear. What can it be? Only let us go on and get there.
A Coign of Vantage. Packed Ice
“We came across the track of a bear again yesterday. How old it was could not easily be determined in this snow, which obliterates everything in a few minutes; but it was probably from yesterday, for ‘Haren’ directly afterwards got scent of something and started off against the wind, so that Johansen thought the bear must be somewhere near. Well, well, old or new, a bear was there while we were a little farther north, stitching at the kayaks, and one day it will come our way, too, no doubt! The gull which Johansen shot brought up a large piece of blubber when it fell, and this tends to confirm us in the belief that bears are at hand, as it hardly could have done so had it not been in such company.
“The weather was wet and wretched, and, to make things worse, there was a thick mist, and the going was as heavy as could be. To go on did not seem very attractive; but, on the other hand, a halt for dinner in this slush was still less so. We therefore continued a little while longer and stopped at 10 o’clock for good. What a welcome change it was to be under the tent again! And the ‘fiskegratin’ was delicious. It gives one such a sense of satisfaction to feel that, in spite of everything, one is making a little way. The temperature is beginning to be bad now; the snow is quite wet, and some water has entered my kayak, which I suppose melted on the deck and ran down through the open side where the lacing is, which we have not yet sewn fast. We are waiting for good weather in order to get the covers thoroughly dry first, and then stretch them well.