Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, the leader of the Fox expedition (1857-58), by which Franklin's fate had been finally ascertained. There, too, was Admiral Sir E. Inglefield, who in 1852 brought Kane Basin within the sphere of geographical knowledge. And there, among the rest, was the famous Arctic traveller, Sir Allen Young, who, so long ago as 1857, had accompanied McClintock, and in 1875 had taken the Pandora right up into Smith Sound to bring tidings of the Nares expedition-the same Pandora which, under the name of the Jeannette, carried the hapless De Long to his fate.

A whole host of other famous polar travellers were present-Admiral Ommanney, Dr. Rae, Captain Wiggins, the well-known Yenisei trader, Captain Wharton, &c.

It was to this illustrious gathering that Nansen was to expound his scheme. His lecture was, as usual, clear, sober, attractive in its form, and plausible in its matter. But he here stood face to face with a concentrated mass of experience, all tending to prove the insuperable difficulties of polar travel, which could not instantly make way for a new idea. Practically all of these famous pioneers of Arctic research, one after another, commented unfavourably upon the scheme.

Old Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock opened the discussion as soon as the lecture was over. He began his speech thus: "I think I may say this is the most adventurous programme ever brought under the notice of the Royal Geographical Society. We have here a true Viking, a descendant of those hardy Norsemen who used to pay this country such frequent and such unwelcome visits.' But he could not venture to express any great confidence in the scheme put forward, even supposing Dr. Nansen succeeded

Sir Leopold

in getting into the alleged polar current. feared the force of the ice-pressure, and did not believe that it would force the ship up upon the ice.

The next speaker, too, Admiral Nares, expressed strong doubts as to the plan. He particularly doubted whether the Fram would succeed in finding any polar current, and dwelt upon the dangers of a drift voyage such as Nansen projected.

Admiral Inglefield expressed himself more favourably, but Sir Allen Young again emphasised the dangers and difficulties, thought that land and shallow water would be found in the neighbourhood of the Pole, and very much doubted whether the ship would be forced up upon the ice. His opinion was that it would be wisest to strike for the north. from a point well to the westward of the New Siberia Islands.

6

Captain Wiggins, too, was opposed to making the New Siberia Islands the starting-point, as they are the most treacherous, low, sandy, muddy, horrible places.' But, on the whole, he approved of Nansen's plan, and ended by wishing him a hearty God-speed.

Captain Wharton, a well-known authority on these questions, gave him warm encouragement as to his theory of the current. He thus ended his speech: People sometimes ask: What is the use of Arctic exploration? Amongst other things I think it may be said that its use is to foster enterprise and bring gallant men to the front. To-night we have an excellent example of that in Dr. Nansen. I can only say to him, God-speed!'

Manuscript communications from Admiral Sir George Richards and the celebrated Sir Joseph D. Hooker were also read, both sceptical and full of warnings. Sir Joseph

Hooker thus ended his remarks: I may conclude with expressing the hope that Dr. Nansen may dispose of his admirable courage, skill, and resources in the prosecution of some less perilous attempts than to solve the mystery of the Arctic area."

It was not until late in the evening that Nansen himself was at last called upon for a short reply to all these doubts and anxious warnings. His answer is as like him as it could be. Though plainly willing enough to take advice as to details, he is in the main unshaken in his conviction of the practicability of his scheme. And while he answers, point by point, the objections to it, he gathers new arguments from these objections themselves. Referring to Admiral Nares's remark, that an Arctic expedition ought always to have a secure line of retreat, he answers: I am of the opposite opinion. My Greenland expedition proved the possibility of carrying out such an enterprise without any line of retreat, for in that case we burnt our ships, and nevertheless made our way across Greenland. I trust we shall have the like good fortune this time, even if we break the bridges behind us.'

It is, as Sir Leopold McClintock said, the old Viking blood that speaks in these words.

For it is true, as that famous explorer hinted at the beginning of his speech, that there is a touch of romance in Nansen's scheme. It is constructed, indeed, upon a scientific basis; but no one who was exclusively a man of science, or exclusively a sportsman, would have had the foresight to conceive such a plan, or the courage to execute it. A creative. and daring imagination is its determining element.

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CHAPTER XVII

AT HOME AND ABROAD

WE have presented in this book a series of portraits of Fridtiof Nansen at different ages, so that our readers have been enabled to follow the development of his physiognomy from the

brow corrugated, the skin lying in folds on the sinewy throat. One can scarcely believe that this is the face of a man of very little more than thirty. It almost seems as though a whole lifetime were recorded in these traits, a

lifetime with all its sufferings; yet it is in reality the face of a young man who has been spared all great sorrows. It is the unrest of the discoverer, it is the habit of brooding over great plans, and forecasting the means of their realisation down to the smallest details, that has furrowed this countenance, to say nothing of an insatiate thirst for work from boyhood upwards. This is the portrait of a man who has never known the beautiful indecision of youth, its dreamy repose, its vague delight in mere existence. He has been struggling with problems from the first. He has from the first transmuted the freshness of youth into energy, into conquering fortitude. It is with full appreciation of their meaning that he quotes (as we have seen), in an early letter to his father, these words of Biörnson's :

Ungdomsmod,
ungdomsmod

gaar som rovfugl i det blaa,
det maa jage, det maa slaa,
det maa alle varder naa.'

These last words may serve as the motto of his whole youth. He has already reached several beacons, and he is now girding up his loins to make for the highest of all, which had been the goal of his dreams for many a year, when that picture was taken in London. The expedition across Greenland (so one of his most intimate friends writes. to us) was only a preparation for the Pole. Long before his name was known and his character divined, either at home or abroad, he had set himself this gigantic task. The moment for attacking it is now at hand. Traces of the vast expenditure of energy it has cost to achieve what lies behind

1 See p. 82.