nter was passed in peaceful
preparation for a start in the spring. When the New Year of 1895 dawned
the _Fram_ had been firmly frozen in for fifteen months. A few days
later, the ship was nearly crushed by a fresh ice pressure and all
prepared to abandon her if necessary, but after an anxious day of ice
roaring and crackling--"an ice pressure with a vengeance, as if
Doomsday had come," remarked Nansen--it quieted down. They had now
beaten all records, for they had reached 83 degrees latitude.

And now preparations for the great sledge journey were complete. They
had built kayaks or light boats to sail in open water, and these were
placed on the sledges and drawn by dogs. Nansen decided only to take
one companion, Johansen, and to leave the others with the _Fram_.

"At last the great day has arrived. The chief aim of the expedition
is to push through the unknown Polar sea from the region around the
New Siberian Islands, north of Franz Josef Land and onward to the
Atlantic Ocean near Spitzbergen or Greenland." Farewells were said,
and then the two men bravely started off over the unknown desert sea
with their sledges and twenty-eight dogs. For the first week they
travelled well and soon reached 85 degrees latitude. "The only
disagreeable thing to face now is the cold," says Nansen. "Our clothes
are transformed more and more into complete suits of ice armour. The
sleeve of my coat actually rubbed deep sores in my wrists, one of which
got frostbitten; the wound grew deeper and deeper and nearly reached
the bone. At night we packed ourselves into our sleeping-bags and lay
with our teeth chattering for an hour before we became aware of a little
warmth in our bodies."

[Illustration: DR. NANSEN. After a photograph.]

Steadily, with faces to the north, they pressed on over the blocks
of rough ice, stretching as far as the horizon, till on 8th April
further progress became impossible. Nansen strode on ahead and mounted
one of the highest hummocks to look around. He saw "a veritable chaos
of ice-blocks, ridge after ridge, and nothing but rubble to travel
over." He therefore determined to turn and make for Franz Josef Land
some four hundred and fifty miles distant. They had already reached
86 degrees of latitude, farther north than any expedition had reached
before.

As they travelled south, they rejoiced in the warmth of the sun, but
their food was growing scarce, and they had to kill a dog every other
day to feed the other