THE weather having moderated, we raised our anchor and with a fair wind continued our voyage. When the night came it was so pitch-dark that I could not distinguish the sea from the horizon and the sky. It was impressive. I felt so little in the immensity that surrounded our craft. Our ship, to my eyes, when compared with the size of the ocean, was not bigger than a tiny hazelnut tossed to and fro upon it.

Once in a while the crest of a wave broke into a long snowy-white line which appeared to be filled with a thousand lights; this effect was caused by the infinite number of animalculÆ, which are struck together by the movement of the wave and give out phosphorescence. These animalculÆ are living creatures which cannot be seen without the help of the microscope. It is wonderful that such small things can give such glowing light.

The long heavy swells, pushed by the southerly gales that had passed away, moved irresistibly on towards the North, one after another, to break the wall of ice the Long Night had built round the pole. What terrific booming must take place there at times, when the ice gives way, breaks up, and rises in great ridges over the Long Wall!

A light at our masthead told of our presence to the mariners of the fishing boats, or the vessels coming from far northern ports across our course, and warned them of danger.

Our ship ploughed her way through the sea, raising a mass of foam brilliant with globules of light. These globules swept astern along the sides of the ship, and disappeared further on. We left behind us an undulating luminous wake, resembling a long bright snake following us, which was gradually in the distance engulfed by the ocean. This luminous track seemed to be reeled off from a windlass at the stern of the ship.

As I watched this white serpentine phosphorescent pathway, I thought of the countless wakes that had been made in like manner since vessels sailed upon the seas, on their way to different lands, for thousands of years past, yet not one of those tracks has ever been seen again. No wonder that the Norsemen called the sea "The Hidden Path."

On deck were four men on the watch, who guarded the lives of those who had gone below to sleep. The man at the helm watched the compass, which was lighted by a lamp. A man at the prow was on the lookout for sudden danger—ships, derelicts, or rocks. Another stood amidships. The first mate paced the deck, watching for any change in the wind. Suddenly the man at the prow shouted:

"Light on the starboard bow!" It was the light of a ship sailing in the opposite direction towards us. In a snowstorm, in a fog, we might have collided; then both might have gone to the bottom of the sea.

To the leeward of us was the barren, forbidding coast; to the windward lay rocky islands. "Dear compass," I whispered, "we trust in thee; lead us right; the night is very dark, and our eyes cannot see rocks ahead, except, perchance, when it is too late."

Suddenly the bell struck: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. It was midnight—time for the watch below to relieve the one on duty, and for the captain to take the place of the mate. Every four hours this change is made. I remained on deck, for I wanted to watch this dark night.

I came on deck early the next morning, for I smothered in the close confined cabin—I had been so accustomed to the bracing open air. As I looked around me I saw nothing but the great horizon which surrounded us. It had seemed so near every day, as we sailed towards it, and yet, no matter how long we sailed, we never came nearer. This was because the horizon is the boundless space in the midst of which the earth moves on its axis round the sun.

In the morning we came to a place full of people dressed in furs. They were Laplanders and Finlanders. A great fair was taking place, and most of the people had crossed the mountains to the Arctic Sea, taking with them for sale reindeer meat, butter, cheese, reindeer cheese made in the summer and autumn, frozen ptarmigans, skins of reindeer, bears, foxes, ermines, and other animals; ready-made clothing, gloves and shoes of reindeer skin; hoofs of reindeer, and other things. They bought salted and dried codfish, sugar, coffee, salt, and other groceries, flour, lamp oil, tobacco, and things for their wives and children, and took back cash with them.

After a short stay we raised our anchor, and continued to sail along that bleak coast until we came to a hidden harbor, well protected by a number of barren islands from the storms of the Arctic Ocean, and cast anchor before a large fishing settlement. It was the beginning of April.

It was a strange place indeed. The port was filled with fishing boats. Hundreds of them were drawn up on the shore, and other hundreds were at anchor. There were also a number of good-sized vessels and smaller craft. All along the rocky shore were huge piles of codfish caught that day. The water was crowded with boats moving in every direction, loaded with cod.

Alongside the big piles of fish, men dressed in wide trousers and overalls of leather were busy preparing the codfish. Some were cutting the heads off and throwing them into a pile, while others were opening the fish, cleaning them, and then, after flattening them, throwing them to other men, who salted them. After this operation they were carried to the warehouses and were ready for drying.

By some of the piles men opened and cleaned the fish and tied them together by twos. After this they were hung on frames or poles. In other places the men divided the cod in halves, taking their spines out, but kept them connected by their gills. These were also hung on the poles. When dry the fish is as hard as wood.

The eggs or ova were put into barrels and salted, and Captain Ole Petersen, who was with me, said to me: "Each barrel contains the ova of three hundred cod. They are sent to Italy and France and used in the sardine fisheries of those countries." Other men were busy putting the livers into barrels, two barrels of fat liver yielding about one barrel of brown oil. The tongues of the cod were taken out of the heads, put into barrels and salted.

I visited the warehouses, built partly on piles projecting into the sea. Along some of these were brigs and schooners loading.

What a sight was the inside of these warehouses! They were filled with long deep rows of freshly salted codfish, piled higher than a man and about the same width. These fish were to be put on board ships and landed upon rocks, there to stay until they were dried and ready to be shipped to foreign countries. The cod is the gold of the people living on this desolate land.

The country around was covered with frames upon which fish were hanging. Nets and lines were seen in every direction on the rocks, left to dry or ready to be mended. Wherever I turned the place was saturated with the blood of fish and offal. The sea was covered with offal; thousands of gulls were flying in every direction and feeding upon it, while great numbers of eider ducks, as tame as farm ducks, were swimming everywhere and feeding. They were not afraid, for no one is allowed to shoot them. The bare rocks were black with hundreds of thousands of heads of cod that had been put there to dry.

These heads, with the bones of fish, are turned into a fertilizer, or used to feed cattle. The heads are boiled before they are given to the animals. "Cattle and sheep feeding on dried fish heads!" I exclaimed with astonishment to my companion, "I never heard of this before."

I asked one of the merchants how he could live in such a place. "The atmosphere that brings money," he replied, "never smells bad. Where there is no smell there is no business and no money with us."

Goodness gracious! what a smell there was in this fishing settlement. It was far from pleasant, especially when compared with the pure air of the land over which I had travelled.

Several nice houses belonged to the merchants of the place. These were painted white and were very comfortable.

The cabins of the fishermen were scattered everywhere and were all alike. They were built of logs, with roofs covered with earth. I wanted to live with the fishermen and become acquainted with them.