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THROUGH SIBERIA
ward. Just then the Captain came on deck after his
nap and it was time to get away. When the Samoyedes
saw that they had to go, they began to beg and beseech
us to be allowed to buy vodka ; but Vostrotin explained
with a fatherly shake of the head that it would not
do. And when at last they saw it was no use, they
padded down the gangway-ladder again in deep dis
appointment and got into their boat.
As we steamed northward at full speed, we saw them
hoist their little sail and steer in towards the point from
which they had come. It is a strange thing that this
was the very spot from which two Samoyedes came to
visit the Fram, when we lay here on August 9, 1893, on
the voyage eastward before forcing our way to the north.
How time flies—is it really twenty years ago ?
It was a little after six in the afternoon when we
went forward through fairly slack ice, and not long
after we were out in the open sea, with a good deal of
swell. It seemed as if the sea must be free of ice for
a long way to the west, the quarter from which the
swell was coming, and in that case the ice along the
edge of which we had steamed to the south must have
been a pretty narrow belt which now lay to the west of
us.
We went at full steam to the northward all night,
and only encountered a floe here and there.
Wednesday, August 13. At 4.30 a.m. we again met
with more ice, and soon after a fog came on and we
had to slow down. We encountered huge flat floes,
as much as half a mile in length, and several times we
had to go astern. Finally the ice became closely packed
ahead, and at seven o’clock we anchored in 10 fathoms
of water. We lay at anchor the whole day. There was
a north-westerly wind, but by degrees it fell light.
The fog lifted in the course of the forenoon and we
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