Proceeding on their perilous voyage, Nansen and Johansen found that they could make safer and quicker progress by securing the kayaks together. On August 28th they reached an island in the Franz Josef group, where they resolved to winter. They built a hut, and having managed to shoot some walrus, they made lamps in which to burn the oil. But they were in a very precarious position, and suffered great hardships, remaining in these wretched winter quarters from August 1895 to May 1896. On May 17th, 1896, the voyage was continued with kayaks lashed and a sail set. They were stopped twice by gales of wind. Then there was very nearly a fatal disaster. The two men were busy on shore, when Johansen suddenly cried out that the kayaks were adrift. It was too true, and their loss would be certain death. They were lashed together and drifting along. Nansen plunged into the ice-cold water with his clothes on. He swam to them but was nearly exhausted before he could get a hold. At last he tumbled on to them, stiff and half-frozen, and in paddling them back to the shore he coolly took his gun and shot two little auks. He was, however, more dead than alive and it was long before Johansen, using all possible means, could recover him. In the end of June they again patched the kayaks, and were starting on the perilous voyage to Spitsbergen, when they had the extraordinary good fortune to be found by Jackson. They received most cordial hospitality, and embarked in Jackson’s relief ship for Norway, which they reached safely in August 1896. Meanwhile the drift of the _Fram_ had been ably continued by Captain Sverdrup, with deep-sea soundings and temperatures. On the 17th August 1895 the vessel sustained another severe nip, but rose to it easily. One more winter, that of 1895–96, was passed, and on May 7th 1896 Sverdrup found that the _Fram_ was in 83° 45′ N., and 12° 50′ E., with Spitsbergen to the south. He determined to force his way into open water, and in 28 days he had worked the ship through 180 miles of closely-packed ice, reaching the navigable sea to the north of Spitsbergen and sighting land after 1041 days. The _Fram_ arrived off Danes Island, where my friend Arnold Pike, who has all the makings, with opportunities, of a first-rate Arctic explorer, had built a house, wintering there in 1888–89. In 1897 he cruised east of Spitsbergen and landed on the Wiche Islands. His house in Danes Gat was used by the ill-fated Andrée when he was preparing to start in his balloon, and Sverdrup and his companions found the latter there with the steamer _Virgo_. But the season was not favourable, and Andrée returned to Sweden. In 1897 he was again at Pike’s house, and on July 11th ascended with two companions in the balloon _Eagle_. They were never more heard of. The _Fram_ arrived in Norway a few days after Nansen, and the whole party were once more united, and were welcomed with unbounded enthusiasm by their countrymen at Christiania.