The following day (August 24th) I had quite made up my mind that we must get out some way or other. When I came on deck in the morning the wind had gone down considerably, and the current was not so strong. A boat would almost be able to row against it; anyhow one could be eased away by a line from the stern, and keep on taking soundings there, while we "kedged" the Fram with her anchor just clear of the bottom. But before having recourse to this last expedient I would make another attempt to go against the wind and the current. The engineers were ordered to put on as much pressure of steam as they dared, and the Fram was urged on at her top speed. Our surprise was not small when we saw that we were making way, and even at a tolerable rate. Soon we were out of the sound or "Knipa" (nipper) as we christened it, and could beat out to sea with steam and sail. Of course, we had, as usual, contrary wind and thick weather. There is ample space between every little bit of sunshine in these quarters. Next day we kept on beating northward between the edge of the ice and the land. The open channel was broad to begin with, but farther north it became so narrow that we could often see the coast when we put about at the edge of the ice. At this time we passed many unknown islands and groups of islands. There was evidently plenty of occupation here, for any one who could spare the time, in making a chart of the coast. Our voyage had another aim, and all that we could do was to make a few occasional measurements of the same nature as Nordenskiöld had made before us. On August 25th I noted in my diary that in the afternoon we had seven islands in sight. They were higher than those we had seen before, and consisted of precipitous hills. There were also small glaciers or snow-fields, and the rock formation showed clear traces of erosion by ice or snow, this being especially the case on the largest island, where there were even small valleys, partially filled with snow.