"We are making everything snug for the winter and for the ice-pressure. This afternoon we took up the rudder. Beautiful weather, but cold, -18° C. at 8 P.M. The result of the medical inspection to-day was the discovery that we still have bugs on board; and I do not know what we are to do. We have no steam now, and must fix our hopes on the cold. "I must confess that this discovery made me feel quite ill. If bugs got into our winter furs the thing was hopeless. So the next day there was a regular feast of purification, according to the most rigid antiseptic prescriptions. Each man had to deliver up his old clothes, every stitch of them, wash himself, and dress in new ones from top to toe. All the old clothes, fur rugs, and such things, were carefully carried up on to the deck, and kept there the whole winter. This was more than even these animals could stand; 53° C. of cold proved to be too much for them, and we saw no more of them. As the bug is made to say in the popular rhyme: "'Put me in the boiling pot, and shut me down tight; But don't leave me out on a cold winter night!' "Friday, October 6th. Cold, down to 11° below zero (Fahr.). To-day we have begun to rig up the windmill. The ice has been packing to the north of the Fram's stern. As the dogs will freeze if they are kept tied up and get no exercise, we let them loose this afternoon, and are going to try if we can leave them so. Of course they at once began to fight, and some poor creatures limped away from the battle-field scratched and torn. But otherwise great joy prevailed; they leaped, and ran, and rolled themselves in the snow. Brilliant aurora in the evening. "Saturday, October 7th. Still cold, with the same northerly wind we have had all these last days. I am afraid we are drifting far south now. A few days ago we were, according to the observations, in 78° 47' north latitude. That was 16' south in less than a week. This is too much; but we must make it up again; we must get north. It means going away from home now, but soon it will mean going nearer home. What depth of beauty, with an undercurrent of endless sadness, there is in these dreamily glowing evenings! The vanished sun has left its track of melancholy flame. Nature's music, which fills all space, is instinct with sorrow that all this beauty should be spread out day after day, week after week, year after year, over a dead world. Why? Sunsets are always sad at home too. This thought makes the sight seem doubly precious here and doubly sad. There is red burning blood in the west against the cold snow--and to think that this is the sea, stiffened in chains, in death, and that the sun will soon leave us, and we shall be in the dark alone! 'And the earth was without form and void;' is this the sea that is to come?