Midnat Sol

The Midnight Sun on the

ocean lay

And blood-red was his hue. It was not night, it was not

day,

But a mingling of the two. --Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner A liner of almost 20,000 tons, the largest ever to nose through Norwegian fjords and visit the northmost Norwegian isle of Spitsbergen, returned last week to Manhattan, bearing some hundreds of tourists all able to boast that they had read newspapers at midnight by the light of what Norwegians call the Midnat Sol. To newsgatherers Captain Wilhelm Muller of this cruise ship, the Hamburg-American liner Reliance, confided that there had been a great difference in the reaction of the U. S. and German cruise passengers to the Midnight Sun; The Germans, forethoughtful, began to "practice sleeping in the light," as soon as the Reliance left Hamburg on her way north. "Practice" consisted in turning on all the lights in one's stateroom at night and accustoming oneself to sleep thus. The U. S. tourists, said Captain Muller, did not take this precaution.

As a result, when the Reliance crossed the Artie circle into that portion of the globe where the sun never sets in June, July and Au gust, the Germans were able to snore comfortably through nights of broad daylight; but U. S. passengers who had not "practiced," found themselves so persistently wakeful that many were up and doing day and night for almost a week on end.

A German boarhound, one Nero, followed the improvident example of the U. S. tourists until he finally sagged down op the deck in utter exhaustion, refusing food and whining in alarm at the large, low, red disc of the Midnight Sun. On the return journey, when night first descended, its coming was greeted by Boarhound Nero with rich, prolonged, joyous baying.