them. A few solitary Arctic and ordinary
gulls were our only company now. One day I found a belated straggler
of a goose sitting on the edge of the ice.

We steamed south in the evening, but still followed by the
dead-water. According to Nordenskioeld's map, it was only about 20 miles
to Taimur Strait, but we were the whole night doing this distance. Our
speed was reduced to about a fifth part of what it would otherwise
have been. At 6 A.M. (September 3d) we got in among some thin ice that
scraped the dead-water off us. The change was noticeable at once. As
the Fram cut into the ice crust she gave a sort of spring forward,
and, after this, went on at her ordinary speed; and henceforth we
had very little more trouble with dead-water.

We found what, according to the map, was Taimur Strait entirely blocked
with ice, and we held farther south, to see if we could not come upon
some other strait or passage. It was not an easy matter finding our way
by the map. We had not seen Hovgaard's Islands, marked as lying north
of the entrance to Taimur Strait; yet the weather was so beautifully
clear that it seemed unlikely they could have escaped us if they
lay where Nordenskioeld's sketch-map places them. On the other hand,
we saw several islands in the offing. These, however, lay so far out
that it is not probable that Nordenskioeld saw them, as the weather was
thick when he was here; and, besides, it is impossible that islands
lying many miles out at sea could have been mapped as close to land,
with only a narrow sound separating them from it. Farther south we
found a narrow open strait or fjord, which we steamed into, in order
if possible to get some better idea of the lay of the land. I sat
up in the crow's-nest, hoping for a general clearing up of matters;
but the prospect of this seemed to recede farther and farther. What we
now had to the north of us, and what I had taken to be a projection of
the mainland, proved to be an island; but the fjord wound on farther
inland. Now it got narrower--presently it widened out again. The
mystery thickened. Could this be Taimur Strait, after all? A dead calm
on the sea. Fog everywhere over the land. It was wellnigh impossible
to distinguish the smooth surface of the water from the ice, and the
ice from the snow-covered land. Everything is so strangely still and
dead. The sea rises and falls with each twist of the fjord through
the silent land of mists. Now we have open water ahead, now mo