midnight
* * * * * I knew that I was at Franz Josef Land , somewhere or other in the neighbourhood of C. Fligely -LRB- about 82 ° N. -RRB- , and though it was so late , and getting cold , I still had the hope of reaching Spitzbergen that year , by alternately sailing all open water , and dragging the kayak over the slack drift-ice . All the ice which I saw was good flat fjord-ice , and the plan seemed feasible enough ; so after coasting about a little , and then three days ' good rest in the tent at the bottom of a ravine of columnar basalt opening upon the shore , I packed some bear and walrus flesh , with what artificial food was left , into the kayak , and I set out early in the morning , coasting the shore-ice with sail and paddle . In the afternoon I managed to climb a little way up an iceberg , and made out that I was in a bay whose terminating headlands were invisible . I accordingly decided to make S.W. by W. to cross it , but , in doing so , I was hardly out of sight of land , when a northern storm overtook me toward midnight ; before I could think , the little sail was all but whiffed away , and the kayak upset . I only saved it by the happy chance of being near a floe with an ice-foot , which , projecting under the water , gave me foot-hold ; and I lay on the floe in a mooning state the whole night under the storm , for I was half drowned . And at once , on recovering myself , I abandoned all thought of whalers and of Europe for that year . Happily , my instruments , & c. , had been saved by the kayak-deck when she capsized .