advanced such a short way within it as to have been unable to realise the essential features which give the land ice its individuality.

We cannot here go into the details of Nansen's report as to the conditions of the land ice. We cannot enter into the questions of its movement, depth, and diminution by melting; or reproduce the numerous facts he has collected, as to the nature of the marginal zone, the formation of icebergs, the Polar current, and the drift ice on the Greenland coast. These observations are of less general significance than those above mentioned.

The more clearly we recognise the importance of a complete understanding of the Great Ice Age, the more highly will the scientific results of Nansen's Greenland expedition be appreciated.

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CHAPTER XIII

EVA NANSEN-AN ILL-STARRED INTERVIEW

By NORDAHL ROLFSEN

On the night of August 12, 1889, a shower of sand and gravel rattled against the window-panes of the house in Eilert Sundt's Street, where lived Fridtiof Nansen's halfsister, to whom he was in the habit of confiding everything. Her husband-the friend who, as a boy, had been Fridtiof's companion in field and forest, and had taught him to shoot and fish-sprang out of bed and opened the window.

6

Who is that?' he called out angrily into the night. A grey figure loomed through the darkness, and a voice was heard to say: 'I want to come in.'

From the window fell terms of abuse such as used to be current in Nordmarken. But the grey figure stood its ground: 'I want to come in.'

And at two o'clock in the morning, Fridtiof Nansen planted himself in the middle of his sister's bedroom, with his long legs far apart, and his hands in his trouser pockets, and glowered at her. She sat up in bed.

Good Heavens, Fridtiof, what's the matter?

I'm engaged, my girl!'

"Oh, are you? To whom?'

To Eva of course.'

Then he said he was hungry. And his brother-in-law had to go out to the larder for cold roast beef and down

into the cellar for champagne. Then the table was spread on his sister's bed, and the new chapter of Fridtiof's Saga was inaugurated by a nocturnal banquet, at which he no doubt sang this stave from the Haavamaal:

For love of maid

shall no man mock
or scorn his fellow;

the wise is oft won

by the loveliness

that moves not the witless.

Fridtiof wrote to his Björn and told him the news. But Sverdrup did not reply Fridtiof, thy folly seems strange to my mind.' He wrote: I have lain awake the whole night thinking it over; the deuce only knows why I'm so glad. For I suppose it's all up with the North Pole now.'

But thus says the Saga-and for this we have the testimony of a true man and a true woman-that when Fridtiof Nansen spoke of his love he said in the same breath, But you know I'm going to the North Pole.' 'For,' says the one who has the best reason to know, he always plays fair.' But who is she?

Thus says the Saga: There was once a very famous man, a poet, whose name is known over Europe, America, and Australia. And he would sometimes walk the streets so buried in thought that he didn't bow to Eva Nansen. And she complained of it. And the famous poet said, 'If it happens again, you have only to whisper as you pass, " Bow, you devil!" And she did.

And this was the woman I was to interview! I trembled. I had once been at Godthaab before Nansen's departure, and she had set two yellow hunting-dogs on me-for the more I have thought it over, the more I am convinced that it was she. And they bit and tore my calf, and I did not complain,