asked which moment was
the proudest of the whole voyage, he answered, without hesitation:
"Undoubtedly the moment when we anchored off Cape Chelyuskin."

It had been named thus by the "Great Northern Expedition" in 1742 after
Lieutenant Chelyuskin, one of the Russian explorers under Laptieff,
who had reached this northern point by a land journey which had entailed
terrible hardships and suffering.

"Next morning," relates Nordenskiold, "we erected a cairn on the shore,
and in the middle of it laid a tin box with the following document
written in Swedish: 'The Swedish Arctic Expedition arrived here
yesterday, the 19th of August, and proceeds in a few hours eastward.
The sea has been tolerably free from ice. Sufficient supply of coals.
All well on board.

"'A. E. NORDENSKIOLD.'

And below in English and Russian were the words, 'Please forward this
document as soon as possible to His Majesty the King of Sweden.'"

Nordenskiold now attempted to steam eastwards towards the New Siberian
Islands, but the fog was thick, and they fell in with large ice-floes
which soon gave place to ice-fields. Violent snowstorms soon set in
and "aloft everything was covered with a crust of ice, and the position
in the crow's nest was anything but pleasant." They reached Khatanga
Bay, however, and on 27th August the _Vega_ was at the mouth of the
Lena.

"We were now in hopes that we should be in Japan in a couple of months;
we had accomplished two-thirds of our way through the Polar sea, and
the remaining third had been often navigated at different distances."

So the _Vega_ sailed on eastwards with an ice-free sea to the New
Siberian Islands, where lie embedded "enormous masses of the bones
and tusks of the mammoth mixed with the horns and skulls of some kind
of ox and with the horns of rhinoceros."

All was still clear of snow, and the New Siberian Islands lying long
and low in the Polar seas were safely passed. It was not till 1st
September that the first snows fell; the decks of the _Vega_ were white
with snow when the Bear Islands were reached. Fog now hindered the
expedition once more, and ice was sighted.

"Ice right ahead!" suddenly shouted the watch on the forecastle, and
only by a hair's-breadth was the _Vega_ saved. On 3rd September a thick
snowstorm came on, the Bear Islands were covered with newly fallen
snow, and though the ice was growing more closely packed than any yet
encoun