were in evidence. It was a very memorable afternoon with the
simple, brave, scientific Nansen.

At Troendhjem we took the steamer "Koeng Harald" for the North Cape. A
party of American friends had just returned from there with the most
lugubrious story about the bad weather and their utter failure to see
the sun. As it was pouring rain when we started, it would not have taken
much persuasion to induce us to give it all up. But we had started with
a purpose, and silently but firmly we went on with it. Dr. Talmage never
turned back at any cross road in his whole life. In a few hours after
leaving Troendhjem we were in the raw, cold Arctic temperature where a
new order of existence begins.

We lose all sense of ordinary time, for our watches indicate midnight,
and there is no darkness. The over-hanging clouds draw slowly apart, and
the most brilliant, dazzling midnight sun covers the waters and sets the
sky on fire. It neither rises from the horizon or sinks into it. It
stays perfectly, immovably still. After a while it rises very slowly.
The meals on board are as irregular as the time; they are served
according to the adaptability of one's appetite to the strangeness of
the new element of constant daytime. We scarcely want to sleep, or know
when to do so. Fortunately our furs are handy, for there is snow and ice
on the wild, barren rocks on either side of us.

On July 1, at 8 p.m., we sighted this northernmost land, the Cape, and
were immediately induced to indulge in cod fishing from the decks of our
steamer. It is the custom, and the cod seem to accept the situation with
perverse indiscretion, for many of them are caught. Our lines and bait
are provided by sailors. Dinner is again delayed to enable us to indulge
in this sport, but we don't mind because we have lost all the habitual
tendencies of our previous normal state.

At 10 p.m., in a bright daylight, the small boats full of passengers
begin to leave the steamer for the shore. In about fifteen minutes we
are landed at the base of that towering Cape. There are some who doubt
the wisdom of Dr. Talmage's attempting to climb at his age. He has no
doubts, however, and no one expresses them to him. He is among the first
to take the staff, handed to him as to all of us, and starts up at his
usual brisk, striding gait. It is a test of lungs and heart, of skill
and nerve to climb the North Cape, and let no one attempt it who is
unfitted for the task. Steep almost as the