One can hardly say that the days passed slowly, for the whole winter was, of course, one long night. It was so silent and empty, and an oppressive, solemn stillness reigned during the calm night. Sometimes the aurora blazed in a mysterious crown in the sky, at other times so dark, and the stars glittered with inconceivable brilliance. The weather, however, was seldom calm. Usually the wind howled round the bare rocks lashed by millions of storms since the earliest times, and snow swished outside and built up walls close around the hut.

The endlessly long night passed slowly on. The men ate and slept, and walked up and down in the darkness to stretch their limbs. Then came Christmas with its old memories. They clean up, sweep and brush, and take up a foot's depth of frozen refuse from the floor of the hut. They rummage for some of the last good things from the Fram, and then Nansen lies listening and fancies he hears the church bells at home.

In the midst of the winter night comes New Year's Day, when it is so cold that they can only lie down and sleep, and look out of their sleeping-bag only to eat. Sometimes they do not put out their noses for twenty hours on end, but lie dosing just like bears in their lairs.

On the last day of February the sun at last appears again. He is heartily welcome, and he is accompanied by some morning birds, Little Auks. The two men are frightened of each other when daylight shines on them, as their hair and beards have grown so long. They have not washed for a year or more, and are as black in the face as negroes. Nansen, who is usually extremely fair, has now jet-black hair. They may be excused for not bathing at a temperature of-40 deg.

The first bear has come. Here he is scratching at the hut and wanting to get in; there is such a good smell from inside. A bullet meets him on the way. And as he runs off up a steep slope he gets another, and comes rolling down in wild bounces like a football. They lived on him for six weeks.

While the days grew lighter they worked at a new outfit. They made trousers out of their blankets. Shoes were patched, rope was cut out of walrus hide, new runners were put on the sledges, the provisions were packed, and on May 19 they left their cabin and marched farther south-west.

Time after time they had to rest on account of snowstorms. They had thrown away the tent, and instead they crept in between the sledges covered with the sail. Once Nansen came down when on skis, and would have been drowned if Johansen had not helped him up in time. The snow lying on this ice was soaked with water. They had always to keep their eyes open and look for firm ice. The provisions came to an end, but the sea swarmed with walruses. Sometimes the animals were so bold that Nansen could go up to them and take photographs. When a fine brute had been shot the others still lay quiet, and only by hitting them with their alpenstocks could the travellers get rid of them. Then the animals would waddle off in single file and plunge head first into the water, which seemed to boil up around them.

Once they had such level ice and a good wind behind them that they hoisted sail on the sledges, stood on skis in front of them to steer, and flew along so that the snow was thrown up around them.

Another time they sailed with the kayaks lashed together and went ashore on an island to get a better view. The kayak raft was moored with a walrus rope. As they were strolling round Johansen called out, "Hullo, the kayaks are adrift."

They ran down. The wind was blowing off the land. Out on the fiord all they possessed in the world was being mercilessly carried away.

"Take my watch," cried Nansen, and throwing off a few clothes he jumped into the ice-cold water, and swam after the kayaks. But they drifted more rapidly than Nansen swam, and the case seemed hopeless. He felt his limbs growing numb, but he thought he might as well drown as swim back without the boats. He struck out for his life, became tired, lay on his back, went on again, saw that the distance was lessening, and put out all his strength for a last spurt. He was quite spent and on the point of sinking when he caught hold of one of the canoes and could hang on and get his breath. Then he heaved himself up into the kayak, and rowed back shivering, with chattering teeth, benumbed, and frozen blue. When he reached the land Johansen put him in the sleeping-bag and laid over him everything he could find. And when he had slept a few hours he was as lively as a cricket and did justice to the supper.

Farther and farther south they continued their daring journey over ice and waves. A walrus came up beside Nansen's canoe, and tried its solidity with his tusks, nearly taking kayak and oarsman down with him to the salt depths. When the animal went off, Nansen felt uncomfortably cold and wet about the legs. He rowed to the nearest ice, where the kayak sank in shallow water and all he possessed was wet and spoiled. Then they had to give themselves a good rest and repair all damages, while walruses grunted and snorted close beside them.

This journey of Nansen's is a unique feat in the history of Polar travels. Of the crews of the Erebus and Terror, a hundred and thirty-four men, not one had escaped, though they had not lost their vessels and though they lay quite close to a coast where there were human beings and game. But these two Norwegians had now held out in the Polar sea for fifteen months, and had preserved their lives and limbs and were in excellent condition.

Their hour of delivery was at hand. On June 17 Nansen ascended an ice hummock and listened to the commotion made by a whole multitude of birds. What now? He listens holding his breath. No, it is impossible! Yes, indeed, that is a dog's bark. It must surely be a bird with a peculiar cry. No, it is a dog barking.

He hurried back to the camp. Johansen thought it was a mistake. They bolted their breakfast. Then Nansen fastened skis on his feet, took his gun, field-glass, and alpenstock, and flew swiftly as the wind over the white snow.

See, there are the footprints of a dog! Perhaps a fox? No, they would be much smaller. He flies over the ice towards the land. Now he hears a man's voice. He yells with all the power of his lungs and takes no heed of holes and lumps as he speeds along towards life, safety, and home.

Then a dog runs up barking. Behind him comes a man. Nansen hurries to meet him, and both wave their caps. Whoever this traveller with the dog may be, he has good reason for astonishment at seeing a jet-black giant come jolting on skis straight from the North Pole.

They meet. They put out their hands.

"How do you do?" asks the Englishman.

"Very well, thank you," says Nansen.

"I am very glad to see you here."

"So am I," cries Nansen.

The Englishman with the dog is named Jackson, and has been for two years in Franz Joseph Land making sledge journeys and explorations. He concludes that the black man on skis is some one from the Fram, but when he hears that it is Nansen himself he is still more astonished and agreeably surprised.

They went to Jackson's house, whither Johansen also was fetched. Both our explorers washed with soap and brush several times to get off the worst of the dirt, all that was not firmly set and imbedded in their skins. They scrubbed and scraped and changed their clothes from top to toe, and at last looked like human beings.

Later in the summer a vessel came with supplies for Jackson. With this vessel Nansen and Johansen sailed home. At Vardoe they received telegrams from their families, and their delight was unbounded. Only one thing troubled them. Where was the Fram? Some little time later Nansen was awakened at Hammerfest one morning by a telegraph messenger. The telegram he brought read: "Fram arrived in good condition. All well on board. Shall start at once for Tromsoe. Welcome home." The sender of the telegram was the captain of the Fram, the brave and faithful Sverdrup.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] A krona is a Swedish coin worth about 1s. 1-1/2d.



VII

THE SOUTH POLAR REGIONS

It is barely a hundred years since European mariners began to approach the coasts of the mysterious mainland which extends around the southern pole of the earth. Ross, who in 1831 discovered the north magnetic pole, sailed ten years later in two ships, the Erebus and the Terror (afterwards to become so famous with Franklin), along the coast of the most southern of all seas, a sea which still bears his name. He discovered an active volcano, not much less than 13,000 feet high, and named it Erebus, while to another extinct volcano he gave the name of Terror. And he saw the lofty ice barrier, which in some places is as much as 300 feet high.

At a much later time there was great rivalry among European nations to contribute to the knowledge of the world's sixth continent. In the year 1901 an English expedition under Captain Scott was despatched to the sea and coasts first visited by Ross. Captain Scott made great and important discoveries on the coast of the sixth continent, and advanced nearer to the South Pole than any of his predecessors. One of the members of the expedition followed his example some years later. His name is Shackleton, and his journey is famous far and wide.

Shackleton resolved to advance from his winter quarters as far as possible towards the South Pole, and with only three other men he set out at the end of October, 1908. His sledges were drawn by strong, plump ponies obtained from Manchuria. They were fed with maize, compressed fodder, and concentrated food, but when during the journey they had to be put on short commons they ate up straps, rope ends, and one another's tails. The four men had provisions for fully three months.

While the smoke rose from the crater of Erebus, Shackleton marched southwards over snow-covered ice. Sometimes the snow was soft and troublesome, sometimes covered with a hard crust hiding dangerous crevasses in the mass of ice. At the camps the adventurers set up their two tents and crept into their sleeping-bags, while the ponies, covered with horse-cloths, stood and slept outside. Sometimes they had to remain stationary for a day or two when snowstorms stopped their progress.



When the sun was hidden by clouds the illumination was perplexing. No shadows revealed the unevenness of the snowfield, all was of the purest white, and where the men thought they were walking over level ground, they might quite unexpectedly come down on their noses down a small slope. Once they heard a thundering noise far away to the east. It sounded like a cannon shot, but probably was only the immense inland ice "calving." When the ice during its constant but slow motion towards the coast slides out into the sea, it is lifted up by the water and is broken up into huge, heavy blocks and icebergs which float about independently. When these pieces break away the inland ice is said to "calve."

Shackleton advanced towards the pole at the rate of twelve to eighteen miles a day. His small party was lost like small specks in the endless desert of ice and snow. Only to the west was visible a succession of mountain summits like towers and pinnacles. The men seemed to be marching towards a white wall which they could never reach.

On November 31 one of the ponies was shot, and its flesh was kept to be used as food. The sledge he had drawn was set up on end and propped up as a mark for the return journey. Five days later Shackleton came to Scott's farthest south, and the lofty mountains with dark, steep, rocky flanks which he afterwards had by the side of his route had never before been seen by man.

A couple of days later a second pony was shot, and shortly afterwards a third, which could go no farther, had to be put out of his misery. The last pony seemed to miss his comrades, but he still struggled on with his sledge, while the four men dragged another.

The mountain range which they had hitherto had on their right curved too much to the east, but fortunately it was cut through by a huge glacier, the great highway to the Pole. They ascended the glacier and crossed a small pass between great pillars of granite. Now they were surrounded by lofty mountains. The ice was intersected by dangerous crevasses, and only with the greatest caution and loss of time could they go round them. A bird flew over their heads, probably a gull. What could he be looking for here in the midst of the eternal ice?

One day three of the explorers were drawing their sledge while the fourth was guiding the one drawn by the pony. Suddenly they saw the animal disappear, actually swallowed up by the ice. A snow bridge had given way under the weight of the pony, and the animal had fallen into a crevasse 1000 feet deep. When they bent over the edge of the dark chasm they could not hear a sound below. Fortunately the front cross-piece of the sledge had come away, so that the sledge and man were left on the brink of the chasm. If the precious provisions had gone down with the horse into the bowels of the ice, Shackleton would have been obliged to turn back.

Now left without assistance in dragging the sledges, they had to struggle up the glacier between rocks and slates in which coal was imbedded. On Christmas Day the temperature was down to-47 deg.—a fine midsummer!

At length the four men had left all mountains behind, and now a plateau country of nothing but snow-covered ice stretched before them. But still the surface of the ice rose towards the heart of the South Polar continent, and the singing headaches from which they suffered were a consequence of the elevation. A flag on a bamboo pole was set up as a landmark.

On January 7 and 8, 1909, they had to lie still in a hard snowstorm, and the temperature fell to-69 deg. When such is the summer of the South Pole, what must the winter be like? January 9 was the last day on their march southwards. Without loads or sledges they hurried on and halted at 88 deg. 23' south latitude.

They were only 100 miles from the South Pole when they had to turn back from want of provisions. They might have gone on and might have reached the Pole, but they would never have come back.

The height was more than 10,000 feet above sea-level, and before them, in the direction of the Pole, extended a boundless flat plateau of inland ice. The Union Jack was hoisted and a record of their journey deposited in a cylinder. Shackleton cast a last glance over the ice towards the Pole, and, sore at heart, gave the order to retreat.

Happily he was able to follow his trail back and succeeded in reaching his winter quarters, whence his vessel carried him home again in safety.

THE END

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- Transcriber's Note: Illustrations, originally had a reference to 'facing page', and have now been placed as close as possible to their original positions. All maps carried an acknowledgement for Emery Walker sc. The following PLATE'S also carried acknowledgements. Plate I. BERLIN Photo. The Photocrom Co. PLATE II. CONSTANTINOPLE Photo. The Photocrom Co. PLATE XXIII. THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW Photo. The Photocrom Co. PLATE XXIV. PARIS Photo. The Photocrom Co. PLATE XXVI. THE COLLOSEUM, ROME. Photo. Underwood and Underwood. PLATE XXVII. POMPEII. Photo. Abteilung, Zurich. PLATE XXXIV. CANONS ON THE COLORADO RIVER. Photo. Underwood and Underwood. PLATE XXXIX. THE "FRAM". Photo. The Record Press. -

THE END