re
ice, and it is impossible to make sure which it is. Is this Taimur
Strait? Are we getting through? A whole year is at stake! ... No! here
we stop--nothing but ice ahead. No! it is only smooth water with the
snowy land reflected in it. This must be Taimur Strait!

But now we had several large ice-floes ahead, and it was difficult to
get on; so we anchored at a point, in a good, safe harbor, to make
a closer inspection. We now discovered that it was a strong tidal
current that was carrying the ice-floes with it, and there could be
no doubt that it was a strait we were lying in. I rowed out in the
evening to shoot some seals, taking for the purpose my most precious
weapon, a double-barrelled Express rifle, calibre 577. As we were in
the act of taking a sealskin on board the boat heeled over, I slipped,
and my rifle fell into the sea--a sad accident. Peter Henriksen and
Bentzen, who were rowing me, took it so to heart that they could not
speak for some time. They declared that it would never do to leave
the valuable gun lying there in 5 fathoms of water. So we rowed
to the Fram for the necessary apparatus, and dragged the spot for
several hours, well on into the dark, gloomy night. While we were
thus employed a bearded seal circled round and round us, bobbing
up its big startled face, now on one side of us, now on the other,
and always coming nearer; it was evidently anxious to find out what
our night work might be. Then it dived over and over again, probably
to see how the dragging was getting on. Was it afraid of our finding
the rifle? At last it became too intrusive. I took Peter's rifle,
and put a ball through its head; but it sank before we could reach it,
and we gave up the whole business in despair. The loss of that rifle
saved the life of many a seal; and, alas! it had cost me L28.

We took the boat again next day and rowed eastward, to find out if
there really was a passage for us through this strait. It had turned
cold during the night and snow had fallen, so the sea round the Fram
was covered with tolerably thick snow-ice, and it cost us a good
deal of exertion to break through it into open water with the boat. I
thought it possible that the land farther in on the north side of the
strait might be that in the neighborhood of Actinia Bay, where the
Vega had lain; but I sought in vain for the cairn erected there by
Nordenskioeld, and presently discovered to my astonishment that it was
only a small island, and