great, provisions scarce.  Scurvy set
in, which, added to home-sickness and anxiety on account of the absent
ones, made matters worse.  Food became scarcer, but providentially Mr
Leigh Smith, in the _Diana_, arrived, and he satisfied the immediate
requirements of the unfortunate Swedes.  The historian of the expedition
warmly acknowledges the assistance so opportunely rendered.

Spring was at hand.  Palander came in, and then Nordenskiold.  All
anxiety was then over.  The same day, the 29th of June, the vessels
passed through the channel which had been cut in the ice, and then they
anchored in open water.  No time was lost.  The _Onkel Adam_ sailed
homeward almost immediately: the _Gladen_ followed.  The _Polhern_,
however, remained in the icy latitudes for some time longer dredging.
On the 6th of August, after with difficulty escaping the ice,
Nordenskiold arrived at Tromsoe, and on the 29th at Gothenberg, where
the expedition dispersed.

In 1875 and 1876 the professor made two voyages to the Yenissei River
and up it.  By this course he opened up Siberia to trade, and received
the thanks of the Russian Government for inaugurating a sea route to
Siberia.  But these voyages, in a sense tentative, were completely
eclipsed by the expedition undertaken in the _Vega_, in which
Nordenskiold accomplished the long-desired North-East Passage from the
North Atlantic to the North Pacific Ocean eastwards.  The ease with
which he had accomplished the two voyages already mentioned (to the
Yenissei River) urged him to proceed with the expedition which he had
been studying for years, the discovery of the North-East Passage.

Sebastian Cabot was the first adventurer in the work destined to be
accomplished by the Swedish explorer.  More than three hundred years ago
Cabot equipped three ships for the "Merchant Adventurers," and put them
under the command of Sir H. Willoughby and Chancelor in 1553.  This
ended in disaster.  In 1580 the "Muscovy Company," as the "Adventurers"
called themselves, sent out Arthur Pitt, who could not ope