"Before going into the tent I went to fetch some salt-water for the soup we were to have for breakfast; but just at that moment a seal came up by the side of the ice, and I ran back for my gun and kayak. Out on the water I discovered that it was leaking like a sieve from lying in the sun, and I had to paddle back faster than I had come out, to avoid sinking. As I was emptying the kayak, up came the seal again in front of me, and this time my shot took effect; the animal lay floating on the water like a cork. It was not many minutes before I had the leaking craft on the water again, and my harpoon in the animal's neck. I towed it in while the kayak gradually filled, and my legs, or, rather, that part which follows closely above the legs when one is sitting in a canoe, became soaked with water, and my 'komager' gradually filled. After having dragged the seal up to the tent, 'flensed' it, collected all the blood which was to be had, and cut it up, I crept into the tent, put on some dry underclothes, and into the bag again, while the wet ones were drying outside in the sun. It is easy enough to keep one's self warm in the tent now. The heat was so great inside it last night that we could hardly sleep, although we lay on the bag instead of in it. When I came back with the seal I discovered that Johansen's bare foot was sticking out of the tent at a place where the peg had given way; he was sleeping soundly and had no idea of it. After having a small piece of chocolate to commemorate the happy capture, and, looking over my observations, we again settled down to rest. "It appears, remarkably enough, from our latitude that we are still on the same spot, without any farther drifts southward, in spite of the northerly winds. Can the ice be landlocked? It is not impossible; far off land, at any rate, we cannot be. "Thursday, June 27th. The same monotonous life, the same wind, the same misty weather, and the same cogitations as to what the future will bring. There was a gale from the north last night, with a fall of hard granular snow, which lashed against the tent walls so that one might think it to be good honest rain. It melted on the walls directly, and the water ran down them. It is cozy in here, however, and the wind does not reach us; we can lie in our warm bag, and listen to the flapping of the tent, and imagine that we are drifting rapidly westward, although perhaps we are not moving from the spot. But if this wind does not move us, the only explanation is that the ice is landlocked, and that we cannot be far off shore. We must wait for an east wind, I suppose, to drive us farther west, and then afterwards south. My hope is that we shall drift into the channel between Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen while we are lying here. The weather was raw and windy with snowfall, so that it was hardly suitable for outdoor work, particularly as, unfortunately, there was no need to hurry.