"Saturday, August 4th. Lovely weather yesterday and to-day. Light,
fleecy clouds sailing high aloft through the sparkling azure
sky--filling one's soul with longings to soar as high and as free as
they. I have just been out on deck this evening; one could almost
imagine one's self at home by the fjord. Saturday evening's peace
seemed to rest on the scene and on one's soul.

"Our sailmakers, Sverdrup and Amundsen, have to-day finished
covering the first double kayak with sail-cloth. Fully equipped,
it weighs 30.5 kilos. (60 lbs.). I think it will prove a first-rate
contrivance. Sverdrup and I tried it on a pool. It carried us
splendidly, and was so stiff that even sitting on the deck we could
handle it quite comfortably. It will easily carry two men with full
equipment for 100 days. A handier or more practical craft for regions
like this I cannot well imagine.

"Sunday, August 5th. 81 deg. 7' north latitude.

"'I can't forget the sparkling fjord
When the church boat rows in the morning.'

"Brilliant summer weather. I bathe in the sun and dream I am at home
either on the high mountains or--heaven knows why--on the fjords of
the west coast. The same white fleecy clouds in the clear blue summer
sky; heaven arches itself overhead like a perfect dome, there is
nothing to bar one's way, and the soul rises up unfettered beneath
it. What matters it that the world below is different--the ice no
longer single glittering glaciers, but spread out on every hand? Is
it not these same fleecy clouds far away in the blue expanse that
the eye looks for at home on a bright summer day? Sailing on these,
fancy steers its course to the land of wistful longing. And it is
just at these glittering glaciers in the distance that we direct our
longing gaze. Why should not a summer day be as lovely here? Ah,
yes! it is lovely, pure as a dream, without desire, without sin;
a poem of clear white sunbeams refracted in the cool crystal blue of
the ice. How unutterably delightful does not this world appear to us
on some stifling summer day at home?

"Have rested and 'kept Sunday.' I could not remain in the whole day,
so took a trip over the ice. Progress is easy except for the lanes.

"Hansen practised kayak-paddling this afternoon on the pool around
the ship, from which several channels diverge over the ice; but he
was not content with paddling round in them, but must, of course,
make an experiment in capsizing and