He obtained and outfitted the steamer _Vega_, and arranged that a smaller supply-steamer, the _Lena_, should accompany him as far as the mouth of the river Lena—a bold proposition in itself, for that was a thousand miles beyond the Yenisei. Nevertheless, this program was carried out; for leaving Gothenberg on July 4, 1878, a month later they were traversing the Kara Sea, and on August 19 passed Cape Chelyuskin, which, up to that time, had defied all attempts and has since closed the gate to all but the daring Nansen. A week later the mouth of the Lena was reached, and the little tender, unloading her coal and other stores into the depleted hold of the _Vega_, turned west, and actually sailed back to civilization uninjured. The _Vega_ then hastened on eastward, and came near getting right through to Bering Strait in that one season; but this was more than the indulgent Arctic gods could grant, and at the end of September the men found themselves frozen into the ice off North Cape (where Cook turned back in 1778), only one hundred and twenty miles from Bering Strait. Here they were near shore, the country was inhabited by Tchuktches—a nomadic people, with herds of reindeer, who take the place in Siberia of the Eskimos of Arctic America; and the time was well spent in gathering a knowledge of these people and their country, and in making very valuable collections in zoology and anthropology. It was not until July 18, 1879, however, that their prison-gates opened, and the _Vega_ steamed on. These waters were familiar enough to navigators; and Nordenskjöld proceeded straight east, passed down through Bering Strait on the next day but one (so near was he), and thus easily accomplished that which had baffled men since first it had been tried by the unfortunate Willoughby three hundred and twenty-six years before. But though the Northeast Passage had thus been found, it was of no more practical value to commerce than the solving of the Northwest Passage had been, and the value received from the cruise was in the scientific information gained, the more accurate delineation of the coast, and the increased knowledge of winds, currents, magnetic phenomena, and the behavior of the floating ice-fields on that side of the polar area. When at last, however, the _Vega_ had circumnavigated the globe by this extraordinary course, returning home through the Suez Canal, as no Arctic expedition had ever been expected to do, its commander was made a baron, and all his men were loaded with praises and honors, while his book, “The Voyage of the _Vega_,” printed in four or five languages, spread their fame throughout the world.