During this fortunate run we had come so far to the west that our course to Hobart was rapidly approaching true north.  On the other hand, we should have liked to be able to take advantage of the prevailing winds, —­ the westerlies.  These vary little from one year to another, and we found them much the same as we had been accustomed to before:  frequent, stiff breezes from the north-west, which generally held for about twelve hours, and then veered to west or south-west.  So long as the north-wester was blowing, there was nothing to do but to lie to with shortened sail; when the change of wind came, we made a few hours’ progress in the right direction.  In this way we crept step by step northward to our destination.  It was slow enough, no doubt; but every day the line of our course on the chart grew a little longer, and towards the end of February the distance between us and the southern point of Tasmania had shrunk to very modest dimensions.

With the constant heavy westerly swell, the Fram, light as she now was, surpassed herself in rolling, and that is indeed saying a great deal.  This rolling brought us a little damage to the rigging, the gaff of the mainsail breaking; however, that affair did not stop us long.  The broken spar was quickly replaced by a spare gaff.

Our hopes of arriving before the end of February came to naught, and a quarter of March went by before our voyage was at an end.

On the afternoon of March 4, we had our first glimpse of land; but, as the weather was by no means clear and we had not been able to determine our longitude with certainty for two days, we were uncertain which point of Tasmania we had before us.  To explain the situation, a short description of the coast-line is necessary.  The southern angle of Tasmania runs out in three promontories; off the easternmost of these, and only divided from it by a very narrow channel, lies a steep and apparently inaccessible island, called Tasman Island.  It is, however, accessible, for on the top of it —­ 900 feet above the sea —­ stands a lighthouse.  The middle promontory is called Tasman Head, and between this and the eastern one we have Storm Bay, which forms the approach to Hobart; there, then, lay our course.  The question was, which of the three heads we had sighted.  This was difficult, or rather impossible, to decide, so indistinct was the outline of the land in the misty air; it was also entirely unknown to us, as not one of us had ever before been in this corner of the world.  When darkness came on, a heavy rain set in, and without being able to see anything at all, we lay there feeling our way all night.  With the appearance of daylight a fresh south-west wind came and swept away most of the rain, so that we could again make out the land.  We decided that what we saw was the middle promontory, Tasman Head, and gaily set our course into Storm Bay —­ as we thought.  With the rapidly strengthening breeze we went spinningly, and the possibility of