Farthest north; being the record of a voyage of exploration of the ship "Fram" 1893-96, and of a fifteen months' sleigh journey by DrNansen and LieutJohansen . far in a day now shouldone be obliged to set off towards the south or west. Itis as if every outlet were blocked, and here we stick—we stick. Sometimes it strikes me as rather remarka-ble that none of our fellows have become alarmed, evenwhen we are bearing farther and farther northward, far-ther and farther into the unknown; but there is no signof fear in any one of them. All look gloomy whenwe are bearing south or too much to the west
Farthest north; being the record of a voyage of exploration of the ship "Fram" 1893-96, and of a fifteen months' sleigh journey by DrNansen and LieutJohansen . far in a day now shouldone be obliged to set off towards the south or west. Itis as if every outlet were blocked, and here we stick—we stick. Sometimes it strikes me as rather remarka-ble that none of our fellows have become alarmed, evenwhen we are bearing farther and farther northward, far-ther and farther into the unknown; but there is no signof fear in any one of them. All look gloomy whenwe are bearing south or too much to the west, and allare beaming with joy when we are drifting to the north-ward, the farther the better. Yet none of them can beblind to the fact that it is a matter of life and death ifanything of what nearly every one prophesied shouldnow occur. Should the ship be crushed in this ice andgo to the bottom, like the Jeannette, without our beingable to save sufficient supplies to continue our drift onthe ice, we should have to turn our course to the south^and then there would be little doubt as to our Jeannette people fared badly enough, but their ship 0^. THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF iSg4 453 went down in 77° north latitude, while the nearest land tous is many times more than double the distance it was intheir case, to say nothing of the nearest inhabited are now more than 70 miles from Cape Chelyuskin,while from there to any inhabited region we are a longway farther. But the Frani will not be crushed, and no-body believes in the possibility of such an event. Weare like the kavak-rower, who knows well enouoh thatone faulty stroke of his paddle is enough to capsize himand send him into eternity; but none the less he goes onhis way serenely, for he knows that he will not make afaulty stroke. This is absolutely the most comfortableway of undertaking a polar expedition; what possiblejourney, indeed, could be more comfortable 1 Not evena railway journey, for then you have the bo
Size: 1408px × 1774px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthornansenfridtjof1861193, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890
