A WHALE.
The fore-deck is one mass of cases, heaps of bricks, casks, bales, bark, and articles of every description. With the exception of a few tardy tourists going from Tromsö to Trondhjem, as it is already late in the season, passengers seem to change at every station. In some places the banks on either side are quite near, and it requires all the skill of the captain to make his way between the beacons, and avoid the numerous rocks scattered along the course. During the winter the passage is lighted by the lighthouse, but just now the nights are short, and there is very little darkness. We pass a great many vessels going through the Loffoden Islands.
Meals are served in a sumptuous saloon, and the traditional amateur concert takes place after dinner. The evening is spent in smoking cigars on deck, where Nature is the leading feature on the programme. The scene is as full of variety as of surprises.
First the sun, whose immense scarlet disc sinks slowly into the wave, leaving in its track a fiery horizon. The whole sky is coloured with tints running the gamut from violet to light grey. Clouds assume fantastic forms, merge into one another, transform their outlines, then disappear; then the pale moon appears, and its silvery glimmer is reflected on the waters.
I stand for hours together in an ecstasy of admiration before these changing pictures, so little known to Parisians. A few stars are shining in the firmament; the air is pure, the night calm, and the atmosphere pleasant.
I can breathe freely and enjoy life. The light breeze, which brings us the perfumes from the pine woods, is barely enough to stir the surface of the sea. In the wake of the ship is a long phosphorescent track. Every turn of the propeller brings me nearer to my country, the main object of my thoughts.
The Haakon Jarl stayed a few hours at Bodo, a small Scandinavian town, beginning to show traces of civilization. Doctor Ekelund and I landed. We were pleased to find some newspapers, in which a meeting of Andrée and Nansen at Tromsö was referred to, also the Polar voyage chart of the celebrated Norwegian explorer. We afterwards attended an open-air concert given by a family of German artists.