winter quarters; while at the same time we took every precaution to assure her against the destructive influences of cold, drift ice, and the other forces of nature to which it was prophesied that we must succumb. The rudder was hauled up so that it might not be destroyed by the 5 pressure of the ice. We had intended to do the same with the screw; but as it, with its iron case, would certainly help to strengthen the stern, and especially the rudderstock, we let it remain in its place. We had a good deal of work with the engine, too; each separate 10 part was taken out, oiled, and laid away for the winter; slide valves, pistons, shafts were examined and thoroughly cleaned. All this was done with the very greatest care. Amundsen looked after that engine as if it had been his own child; late and early he was down tending 15 it lovingly; and we used to tease him about it, to see the defiant look come into his eyes and hear him say: "It's all very well for you to talk; but there's not another such engine in the world, and it would be a sin and a shame not to take good care of it." Assuredly 20 he left nothing undone. I don't suppose a day passed, winter or summer, all those three years, that he did not go down and caress it and do something or other for it.

We cleared up in the hold to make room for a joiner's workshop down there; our mechanical workshop we had 25 in the engine room. The smithy was at first on deck, and afterwards on the ice; tinsmith's work was done

chiefly in the chart room; shoemaker's and sailmaker's, and various odd sorts of work, in the saloon. And all these occupations were carried on with interest and activity during the rest of the expedition. There was nothing, 5 from the most delicate instruments down to wooden shoes and ax handles, that could not be made on board the "Fram." When we were found to be short of sounding line, a grand ropewalk was constructed on the ice. It proved to be a very profitable undertaking and was well 10 patronized.

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Presently we began putting up the windmill which was to drive the dynamo and produce the electric light. While the ship was going the dynamo was driven by the engine, but for a long time past we had had to be 15 contented with petroleum lamps in our dark cabins. The windmill was erected on the port side of the foredeck, between the main hatch and the rail. It took several weeks to get this important appliance into working order. Tuesday, September 26. Beautiful weather. The 20 sun stands much lower now; it was 9° above the horizon at midday. Winter is rapidly approaching. I wandered about over the floe toward evening. Nothing more wonderfully beautiful can exist than the Arctic night. It is dreamland painted in the imagination's most delicate 25 tints; it is color etherealized. One shade melts into the other, so that you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, and yet they are all there. No forms-it

is all faint, dreamy color music, a far-away, long-drawnout melody on muted strings. Is not all life's beauty high and delicate and pure like this night? Give it brighter colors, and it is no longer so beautiful. The sky is like an enormous cupola, blue at the zenith, shading down into green, and then into lilac and violet at the edges. Over the ice fields there are cold violet-blue shadows, with lighter pink tints where a ridge here and there catches the last reflection of the vanished day. Up in the blue of the cupola shine the stars, speaking peace, 10 as they always do, those unchanging friends. In the south stands a large red-yellow moon, encircled by a yellow ring and light golden clouds floating on the blue background. Presently the aurora borealis shakes over the vault of heaven its veil of glittering silver-chang- 15 ing now to yellow, now to green, now to red. It spreads, it contracts again, in restless change; next it breaks into waving, many-folded bands of shining silver, over which shoot billows of glittering rays, and then the glory vanishes. Presently it shimmers in tongues of flame over 20 the very zenith, and then again it shoots a bright ray right up from the horizon, until the whole melts away in the moonlight. Here and there are left a few waving streamers of light, vague as a foreboding- they are the dust from the aurora's glittering cloak. But now it is 25 growing again, new lightnings shoot up, and the endless game begins afresh.

Until now

"Thursday, September 28. Snowfall with wind. To-day the dogs' hour of release has come. their life on board has been really a melancholy one. The stormy seas have broken over them, and they have 5 been rolled here and there in the water on the deck; they have half hanged themselves in their leashes, howling miserably; they have had the hose played over them every time the deck was washed; they have been seasick ; in bad as in good weather they have had to lie on the 10 same hard spot fate chained them to, without more exercise than going backward and forward the length of their chains. It is thus you are treated, you splendid animals, who are to be our stay in the hour of need! When that time comes you will, for a while at least, have the place 15 of honor. When they were let loose there was a perfect

storm of jubilation. They rolled in the snow, washed and rubbed themselves, and rushed about the ice in wild joy, barking loudly. Our floe, a short time ago so lonesome and forlorn, was quite a cheerful sight with this 20 sudden population; the silence of ages was broken."

Abridged.

"Fram": the name means forward. — watch after watch: on shipboard time is divided into watches, or periods of four hours. luff the act of bringing the ship close up to the point from which the wind is blowing. — Amundsen: chief engineer of the "Fram.” — port side: the left side. The old term was larboard. muted strings: the sound of a violin or other stringed instrument may be softened by means of a mute, a little brass or ivory utensil fastened to the bridge.

CONTENTMENT

EDWARD DYER

SIR EDWARD DYER was an English poet of the sixteenth century.

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
As far exceeds all earthly bliss

That world affords, or grows by kind:
Though much I want what most men have,
Yet doth my mind forbid me crave.

Content I live: this is my stay,

I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway:

Look! what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo! thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

I see how plenty surfeits oft,
And hasty climbers oft do fall;
I see how those that sit aloft

Mishap doth threaten most of all:

They get, they toil, they spend with care;
Such cares my mind could never bear.

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