ptember 22, 1893) 324
VII. The waning polar day (September 22, 1893) 352
VIII. Moonlight (November 22, 1893) 576

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The Author had not originally contemplated the publication of the
colored sketches which are produced in this work. He has permitted
their reproduction because they may be useful as showing color effects
in the Arctic; but he wishes it understood that he claims no artistic
merit for them.

FARTHEST NORTH

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

"A time will come in later years when the Ocean will
unloose the bands of things, when the immeasurable
earth will lie open, when seafarers will discover new
countries, and Thule will no longer be the extreme
point among the lands."--Seneca.

Unseen and untrodden under their spotless mantle of ice the rigid
polar regions slept the profound sleep of death from the earliest dawn
of time. Wrapped in his white shroud, the mighty giant stretched his
clammy ice-limbs abroad, and dreamed his age-long dreams.

Ages passed--deep was the silence.

Then, in the dawn of history, far away in the south, the awakening
spirit of man reared its head on high and gazed over the earth. To
the south it encountered warmth, to the north, cold; and behind the
boundaries of the unknown it placed in imagination the twin kingdoms
of consuming heat and of deadly cold.

But the limits of the unknown had to recede step by step before the
ever-increasing yearning after light and knowledge of the human mind,
till they made a stand in the north at the threshold of Nature's
great Ice Temple of the polar regions with their endless silence.

Up to this point no insuperable obstacles had opposed the progress
of the advancing hosts, which confidently proceeded on their way. But
here the ramparts of ice and the long darkness of winter brought them
to bay. Host after host marched on towards the north, only to suffer
defeat. Fresh ranks stood ever ready to advance over the bodies of
their predecessors. Shrouded in fog lay the mythic land of Nivlheim,
where the "Rimturser" [1] carried on their wild gambols.

Why did we continually return to the attack? There in the darkness
and cold stood Helheim, where the death-goddess held her sway;
there lay Nastrand, the shore of corpses. Thither, where no living
being could draw breath, thither troo