"The ice-pressure was not noticeable after 1 o'clock on Friday night until it suddenly recommenced last night. First I heard a rumbling outside, and some snow fell down from the rigging upon the tent roof as I sat reading; I thought it sounded like packing in the ice, and just then the Fram received a violent shock, such as she had not received since last winter. I was rocked backward and forward on the chest on which I was sitting. Finding that the trembling and rumbling continued, I went out. There was a loud roar of ice-packing to the west and northwest, which continued uniformly for a couple of hours or so. Is this the New-year's greeting from the ice? "We spent New-year's-eve cozily, with a cloudberry punch-bowl, pipes, and cigarettes. Needless to say, there was an abundance of cakes and the like, and we spoke of the old and the new year and days to come. Some selections were played on the organ and violin. Thus midnight arrived. Blessing produced from his apparently inexhaustible store a bottle of genuine 'linje akkevit' (line eau-de-vie), and in this Norwegian liquor we drank the old year out and the new year in. Of course there was many a thought that would obtrude itself at the change of the year, being the second which we had seen on board the Fram, and also, in all probability, the last that we should all spend together. Naturally enough, one thanked one's comrades, individually and collectively, for all kindness and good-fellowship. Hardly one of us had thought, perhaps, that the time would pass so well up here. Sverdrup expressed the wish that the journey which Johansen and I were about to make in the coming year might be fortunate and bring success in all respects. And then we drank to the health and well-being in the coming year of those who were to remain behind on board the Fram. It so happened that just now at the turn of the year we stood on the verge of an entirely new world. The wind which whistled up in the rigging overhead was not only wafting us on to unknown regions, but also up into higher latitudes than any human foot had ever trod. We felt that this year, which was just commencing, would bring the culminating-point of the expedition, when it would bear its richest fruits. Would that this year might prove a good year for those on board the Fram; that the Fram might go ahead, fulfilling her task as she has hitherto done; and in that case none of us could doubt that those on board would also prove equal to the task intrusted to them.