gratifying returns he had received from our last catch by
marketing at Stockholm, instead of selling at one of the
seafaring towns along the Scandinavian coast. He was especially
pleased with the sale of some ivory tusks that he had found on
the west coast of Franz Joseph Land during one of his northern
cruises the previous year, and he expressed the hope that this
time we might again be fortunate enough to load our little
fishing-sloop with ivory, instead of cod, herring, mackerel and
salmon.

We put in at Hammerfest, latitude seventy-one degrees and forty
minutes, for a few days' rest. Here we remained one week, laying
in an extra supply of provisions and several casks of
drinking-water, and then sailed toward Spitzbergen.

For the first few days we had an open sea and a favoring wind,
and then we encountered much ice and many icebergs. A vessel
larger than our little fishing-sloop could not possibly have
threaded its way among the labyrinth of icebergs or squeezed
through the barely open channels. These monster bergs presented
an endless succession of crystal palaces, of massive cathedrals
and fantastic mountain ranges, grim and sentinel-like, immovable
as some towering cliff of solid rock, standing; silent as a
sphinx, resisting the restless waves of a fretful sea.

After many narrow escapes, we arrived at Spitzbergen on the 23d
of June, and anchored at Wijade Bay for a short time, where we
were quite successful in our catches. We then lifted anchor and
sailed through the Hinlopen Strait, and coasted along the
North-East-Land.[2]