ND THE NORTH WIND

I TRIED to forget my thirst by busying myself with bringing up some food
and an empty vessel from the hold. Reaching over the side-rail, I filled
the vessel with water for the purpose of laving my hands and face. To my
astonishment, when the water came in contact with my lips, I could taste
no salt. I was startled by the discovery. "Father!" I fairly gasped,
"the water, the water; it is fresh!" "What, Olaf?" exclaimed my father,
glancing hastily around. "Surely you are mistaken. There is no land. You
are going mad." "But taste it!" I cried.

And thus we made the discovery that the water was indeed fresh,
absolutely so, without the least briny taste or even the suspicion of a
salty flavor.

We forthwith filled our two remaining water-casks, and my father
declared it was a heavenly dispensation of mercy from the gods Odin and
Thor.

We were almost beside ourselves with joy, but hunger bade us end our
enforced fast. Now that we had found fresh water in the open sea, what
might we not expect in this strange latitude where ship had never before
sailed and the splash of an oar had never been heard? (11)

(11 In vol. I, page 196, Nansen writes: "It is a peculiar
phenomenon,--this dead water. We had at present a better opportunity of
studying it than we desired. It occurs where a surface layer of fresh
water rests upon the salt water of the sea, and this fresh water is
carried along with the ship gliding on the heavier sea beneath it as if
on a fixed foundation. The difference between the two strata was in this
case so great that while we had drinking water on the surface, the water
we got from the bottom cock of the engine-room was far too salt to be
used for the boiler.")

We had scarcely appeased our hunger when a breeze began filling the
idle sails, and, glancing at the compass, we found the northern point
pressing hard against the glass.

In response to my surprise, my father said, "I have heard of this
before; it is what they call the dipping of the needle."

We loosened the compass and turned it at right angles with the surface
of the sea before its point would free itself from the glass and point
according to unmolested attraction. It shifted uneasily, and seemed as
unsteady as a drunken man, but finally pointed a course.

Before this we thought the wind was carrying us north by northwest, but,
with the needle free, we discovered, if it could be relied upon, that we
were sailing slightly no