d with shelves where you lie down and are parboiled with
hot steam, which is constantly kept up by water being thrown on the
glowing hot stones of an awful oven, worthy of hell itself; while all
the time young quaen (lasses) flog you with birch twigs. After that
you are rubbed down, washed, and dried delightfully--everything being
well managed, clean, and comfortable. I wonder whether old Father
Mahomet has set up a bath like this in his paradise.

CHAPTER IV

FAREWELL TO NORWAY

I felt in a strange mood as I sat up the last night writing letters
and telegrams. We had bidden farewell to our excellent pilot,
Johan Hagensen, who had piloted us from Bergen, and now we were only
the thirteen members of the expedition, together with my secretary,
Christofersen, who had accompanied us so far, and was to go on with us
as far as Yugor Strait. Everything was so calm and still, save for the
scraping of the pen that was sending off a farewell to friends at home.

All the men were asleep below.

The last telegram was written, and I sent my secretary ashore with
it. It was 3 o'clock in the morning when he returned, and I called
Sverdrup up, and one or two others. We weighed anchor, and stood
out of the harbor in the silence of the morning. The town still lay
wrapped in sleep; everything looked so peaceful and lovely all around,
with the exception of a little stir of awakening toil on board one
single steamer in the harbor. A sleepy fisherman stuck his head up
out of the half-deck of his ten-oared boat, and stared at us as we
steamed past the breakwater; and on the revenue cutter outside there
was a man fishing in that early morning light.

This last impression of Norway was just the right one for us to
carry away with us. Such beneficent peace and calm; such a rest for
the thoughts; no hubbub and turmoil of people with their hurrahs and
salutes. The masts in the harbor, the house-roofs, and chimneys stood
out against the cool morning sky. Just then the sun broke through
the mist and smiled over the shore--rugged, bare, and weather-worn
in the hazy morning, but still lovely--dotted here and there with
tiny houses and boats, and all Norway lay behind it....

While the Fram was slowly and quietly working her way out to sea,
towards our distant goal, I stood and watched the land gradually
fading away on the horizon. I wonder what will happen to her and to
us before we again see Norway rising up over the sea?

But a