“Oh, the road to the stars is both long and difficult!
“Tuesday, December 31st. And this year too is vanishing. It has been strange, but, after all, it has perhaps not been so bad.
“They are ringing out the old year now at home. Our church-bell is the icy wind howling over glacier and snow-field, howling fiercely as it whirls the drifting snow on high in cloud after cloud, and sweeps it down upon us from the crest of the mountain up yonder. Far in up the fjord you can see the clouds of snow chasing one another over the ice in front of the gusts of wind, and the snow-dust glittering in the moonlight. And the full moon sails silent and still out of one year into another. She shines alike upon the good and the evil, nor does she notice the wants and yearnings of the new year. Solitary, forsaken, hundreds of miles from all that one holds dear; but the thoughts flit restlessly to and fro on their silent paths. Once more a leaf is turned in the book of eternity, a new blank page is opened, and no one knows what will be written on it.”
[1] This supposition is extremely doubtful.
[2] It proved later that this must be Crown Prince Rudolf Land.
[3] In reality we were probably farther from it than before.
[4] We saw more and more of these remarkable birds the farther we went.
[5] As a rule, we crossed the lanes in this manner; we placed the sledges, with the kayaks on, side by side, lashed them together, stiffened them by running the snow-shoes across under the straps, which also steadied them, and then launched them as they were, with the sledges lashed underneath. When across, we had only to haul them up on the other side.
[6] The first island I called “Eva’s Island,” the second “Liv’s Island,” and the little one we were then on “Adelaide’s Island.” The fourth island south of us had, perhaps, already been seen by Payer, and named by him “Freeden Island.” The whole group of islands I named “Hvidtenland” (White Land).