Our presentation took place the next day at the summer palace, which is five miles from Copenhagen.  It was the most informally delightful meeting.  The formalities of royalty that are sometimes made to appear so overwhelming to the ordinary individual, were so gracefully interwoven by the Crown Prince and the Princess with cordiality and courtesy, that we were as perfectly at ease, as if there had been crowns hovering over our own heads.  The royal children were all present, too, and we talked and walked and laughed together like a family party.  The Crown Princess said to me, “Come, let me show you my garden,” and we strolled in the beautiful grounds.  The Crown Prince said, “Come, let me show you my den,” and there gave us the autographs of himself and the Princess.  We left regretfully.  As we drove away the royal party were gathered at the front windows of the palace waving their handkerchiefs to us in graceful adieus.  I remember my little daughter was very much surprised with the simplicity of the whole affair, saying to me as we drove away, “Why, it was just like visiting Grandpa’s home.”

On our way to Troendhjem from Copenhagen we stayed over a few days at Christiania, where we were the guests of Nansen, the Arctic explorer.  His home, which stood out near the water’s edge, was like a bungalow made of pine logs.  There were no carpets on the floors, which were covered with the skins of animals he had himself killed.  Trophies of all sorts were in evidence.  It was a very memorable afternoon with the simple, brave, scientific Nansen.

At Troendhjem we took the steamer “Koeng Harald” for the North Cape.  A party of American friends had just returned from there with the most lugubrious story about the bad weather and their utter failure to see the sun.  As it was pouring rain when we started, it would not have taken much persuasion to induce us to give it all up.  But we had started with a purpose, and silently but firmly we went on with it.  Dr. Talmage never turned back at any cross road in his whole life.  In a few hours after leaving Troendhjem we were in the raw, cold Arctic temperature where a new order of existence begins.

We lose all sense of ordinary time, for our watches indicate midnight, and there is no darkness.  The over-hanging clouds draw slowly apart, and the most brilliant, dazzling midnight sun covers the waters and sets the sky on fire.  It neither rises from the horizon or sinks into it.  It stays perfectly, immovably still.  After a while it rises very slowly.  The meals on board are as irregular as the time; they are served according to the adaptability of one’s appetite to the strangeness of the new element of constant daytime.  We scarcely want to sleep, or know when to do so.  Fortunately our furs are handy, for there is snow and ice on the wild, barren rocks on either side of us.

On July 1, at 8 p.m., we sighted this northernmost land, the Cape, and were immediately induced to indulge in cod fishing from the decks of our steamer.  It is the custom, and the cod seem to accept the situation with perverse indiscretion, for many of them are caught.  Our lines and bait are provided by sailors.  Dinner is again delayed to enable us to indulge in this sport, but we don’t mind because we have lost all the habitual tendencies of our previous normal state.