Assured by the experience gained in these voyages that the North-east Passage was possible to a steam vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld, in 1878, was enabled to fit out the _Vega_, and sailed from Tromsoe on the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied her, two bound for the Yenesei, one for the Lena, the rendezvous being Khabarova. All went well. On the 9th of August the _Fraser_ and _Express_ proceeded up the Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to Europe in safety; next day the _Vega_ and _Lena_ left for the eastward, and, after some risky navigation among islands and through fog, lay for four days in Actinia Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland, vainly waiting for clear weather. Pushing on through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its western horn anchored in a bay open to the north and free from ice at the extremity of Cape Chelyuskin. With the rounding of the most northerly point of the Old World the first object of the expedition had been attained. The salute fired in honour of the event having frightened away the only polar bear who had stood watching the ship from the western horn, some of the party landed, the botanists to discover that all the plants of the peninsula had apparently been stopped on the outermost promontory when trying to migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a few luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering plants, eight of them saxifrages, most of them with a tendency to form semi-globular tufts; the fauna consisted of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of sandpipers. Not so long a list as was obtained at other landings, but by no means a bad one for the half-way house to the Pole. After passing the cape the course was laid for the New Siberian Islands, but ice prevented progress in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the highest north of the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by the route she went in, thus losing a day, which had serious consequences, though it proved the correctness of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water delivered by the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels content to keep near the coast. On reaching the mouth of the Lena the ships parted company, Captain Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as intended and bringing the news of the rounding of Cape Chelyuskin and the promise of the North-east Passage being accomplished in one season, which was not destined to be fulfilled.