n board--Health and dietary--Cold, wind, and snow
--The Chukches on board--Menka's visit--Letters sent home--
Nordquist and Hovgaard's excursion to Menka's encampment--
Another visit of Menka--The fate of the letters--Nordquist's
journey to Pidlin--_Find_ of a Chukch grave--Hunting--
Scientific work--Life on board--Christmas Eve.

Assured that a few hours' southerly wind would be sufficient to
break up the belt of ice, scarcely a Swedish mile[249] in breadth,
that barred our way, and rendered confident by the above-quoted
communications from experts in America concerning the state of the
ice in the sea north of Behring's Straits, I was not at first very
uneasy at the delay, of which we took advantage by making short
excursions on land and holding converse with the inhabitants. First,
when day after day passed without any change taking place, it became
clear to me that we must make preparations for wintering just on the
threshold between the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans. It was an
unexpected disappointment, which it was more difficult to bear with
equanimity, as it was evident that we would have avoided it if we
had come some hours earlier to the eastern side of Kolyutschin Bay.
There were numerous occasions during the preceding part of our
voyage on which these hours might have been saved: the _Vega_
did not require to stay so long at Port Dickson, we might have saved
a day at Taimur Island, have dredged somewhat less west of the New
Siberian Islands, and so on; and above all, our long stay at
Irkaipij waiting for an improvement in the state of the ice, was
fatal, because at least three days were lost there without any
change for the better taking place.

The position of the vessel was by no means very secure. For the
_Vega_, when frozen in, as appears from the sketch map to be found
further on, did not lie at anchor in any haven, but was only, in the
expectation of finding a favourable opportunity to steam on,
anchored behind a ground-ice, which had stranded in a depth of 9-1/2
metres, 1,400 metres from land, in a road which was quite open from
true N. 74 deg. W. by north to east. The vessel had here no other
protection against the violent ice-pressure which winter storms are
wont to cause in the Polar seas, than a rock of ice stranded at high
water, and therefore also at high water not very securely fixed.
Fortunately the tide just on the occasion of our being frozen in,
appears to have been