CHAPTER V

A HARD STRUGGLE

"Tuesday, April 3d. There are many different kinds of difficulty to overcome on this journey, but the worst of all, perhaps, is getting all the trifles done and starting off. In spite of my being up by 7 o'clock on Monday evening to do the cooking, it was nearly two this morning before we got clear of our camping-ground. The load on Johansen's sledge had to be relashed, as the contents of one grip had been eaten up, and we had to put a sack of bread in its place. Another grip had to be sewed together, as it was dripping pemmican. Then the sledge from which the bread-sack had been taken had to be lashed secure again, and while we had the ropes undone it was just as well to get out a supply of potatoes. [13] During this operation we discovered that there was a hole in the fish-flour sack, which we tied up, but no sooner had we done so than we found another large one which required sewing. When we came to pack the potato-sack, this too had a hole in it, which we tied up, and so on. Then the dogs' traces had to be disentangled; the whole thing was in an inextricable muddle, and the knots and twists in the icy, frozen rope got worse and worse to deal with. Johansen made haste and patched his trousers before breakfast. The south wind had become what on board the Fram we should have called a 'mill breeze' (i.e., 19 to 23 feet in the second); and, with this at our back, we started off in driving snow. Everything went splendidly at first, but then came one pressure-ridge after another, and each one was worse than the last. We had a long halt for dinner at eight or nine in the morning, after having chosen ourselves a sheltered place in the lee of a ridge. We spread out the sleeping-bag, crept down into it with our food, and so tired was I that I went to sleep with it in my hand. I dreamed I was in Norway, and on a visit to some people I had only seen once in my life before. It was Christmas-day, and I was shown into a great empty room, where we were intended to dine. It was very cold in it, and I shivered, but there were already some hot dishes steaming on the table, and a beautiful fat goose. How unspeakably did I look forward to that goose! Then some other visitors began to arrive; I could see them through the window, and was just going out to meet them when I stumbled into deep snow. How it all happened, in the middle of the dining-room floor, I know not. The host laughed in an amused way, and--I woke up and found myself shivering in a sleeping-bag on the drift-ice in the far north. Oh, how miserable I felt! We got up, packed our things silently together, and started off. Not until 4 o'clock that afternoon did we stop, but everything was dull and cheerless, and it was long before I got over my disappointment. What would I not have given for that dinner, or for one hour in the room, cold as it was!

"The ridges and the lanes which had frozen together again, with rubble on either side, became worse and worse. Making one's way through these new ridges is desperate work. One cannot use snow-shoes, as there is too little snow between the piled-up blocks of ice, and one must wade along without them. It is also impossible to see anything in this thick weather--everything is white--irregularities and holes; and the spaces between the blocks are covered with a thin, deceptive layer of snow, which lets one crashing through into cracks and pitfalls, so that one is lucky to get off without a broken leg. It is necessary to go long distances on ahead in order to find a way; sometimes one must search in one direction, sometimes in another, and then back again to fetch the sledges, with the result that the same ground is gone over many times. Yesterday, when we stopped, I really was done. The worst of it all, though, was that when we finally came to a standstill we had been on the move so long that it was too late to wind up our watches. Johansen's had stopped altogether; mine was ticking, and happily still going when I wound it up, so I hope that it is all right. Twelve midday, -24.6° Fahr. (-31.5° C). Clear weather, southeasterly wind (13 feet in the second).

"The ice seems to be getting worse and worse, and I am beginning to have doubts as to the wisdom of keeping northward too long.

"Wednesday, April 3d. Got under way yesterday about three in the afternoon. The snow was in first-rate condition after the southeast wind, which continued blowing till late in the day. The ice was tolerably passable, and everything looked more promising; the weather was fine, and we made good progress. But after several level tracts with old humpy ice came some very uneven ones, intersected by lanes and pressure-ridges as usual. Matters did not grow any better as time went on, and at midnight or soon after we were stopped by some bad ice and a newly frozen lane which would not bear. As we should have had to make a long detour, we encamped, and 'Russen' was killed (this was the second dog to go). The meat was divided into 26 portions, but 8 dogs refused it, and had to be given pemmican. The ice ahead does not look inviting. These ridges are enough to make one despair, and there seems to be no prospect of things bettering. I turned out at midday and took a meridian observation, which makes us in 85° 59' N. It is astonishing that we have not got farther; we seem to toil all we can, but without much progress. Beginning to doubt seriously of the advisability of continuing northward much longer. It is three times as far to Franz Josef Land as the distance we have now come. How may the ice be in that direction? We can hardly count on its being better than here, or our progress quicker. Then, too, the shape and extent of Franz Josef Land are unknown, and may cause us considerable delay, and perhaps we shall not be able to find any game just at once. I have long seen that it is impossible to reach the Pole itself or its immediate vicinity over such ice as this and with these dogs. If only we had more of them! What would I not give now to have the Olenek dogs? We must turn, sooner or later. But as it is only a question of time, could we not turn it to better account in Franz Josef Land than by travelling over this drift-ice, which we have now had a good opportunity of learning to know? In all probability it will be exactly the same right to the Pole. We cannot hope to reach any considerable distance higher before time compels us to turn. We certainly ought not to wait much longer. Twelve midday, -20.8° Fahr. (-29.4° C), clear weather, 3 feet wind from east; twelve midnight, -29.2° Fahr. (-34° C), clear and still."

It became more and more of a riddle to me that we did not make greater progress northward. I kept on calculating and adding up our marches as we went along, but always with the same result; that is to say, provided only the ice were still, we must be far above the eighty-sixth parallel. It was becoming only too clear to me, however, that the ice was moving southward, and that in its capricious drift, at the mercy of wind and current, we had our worst enemy to combat.

"Friday, April 5th. Began our march at three yesterday morning. The ice, however, was bad, with lanes and ridges, so that our progress was but little. These lanes, with rubble thrown up on each side, are our despair. It is like driving over a tract of rocks, and delays us terribly. First I must go on ahead to find a way, and then get my sledge through; then, perhaps, by way of a change, one falls into the water; yesterday, I fell through twice. If I work hard in finding a way and guiding my sledge over rough places, Johansen is no better off, with his two sledges to look after. It is a tough job to get even one of them over the rubble, to say nothing of the ridges; but he is a plucky fellow, and no mistake, and never gives in. Yesterday he fell into the water again in crossing a lane, and got wet up to his knees. I had gone over on my snow-shoes shortly before and did not notice that the ice was weak. He came afterwards without snow-shoes, walking beside one of the sledges, when suddenly the ice gave, and he fell through. Happily he managed to catch hold of the sledge, and the dogs, which did not stop, pulled him up again. These baths are not an unmixed pleasure, now that there is no possibility of drying or changing one's clothes, and one must wear a chain mail of ice until they thaw and dry on the body, which takes some time in this temperature. I took an observation for longitude and a magnetic observation yesterday morning, and have spent the whole forenoon to-day in calculations (inside the bag) to find out our exact position. I find our latitude yesterday was 86° 2.8' N. This is very little, but what can we do when the ice is what it is? And these dogs cannot work harder than they do, poor things. I sigh for the sledge-dogs from the Olenek daily now. The longitude for yesterday was 98° 47.15'', variation 44.4°.

"I begin to think more and more that we ought to turn back before the time we originally fixed. [14] It is probably 350 miles or so to Petermann's Land (in point of fact it was about 450 miles to Cape Fligely); but it will probably take us all we know to get over them. The question resolves itself into this: Ought we not, at any rate, to reach 87° N.? But I doubt whether we can manage it if the ice does not improve.

"Saturday, April 6th. Two A.M., -11.4° Fahr. (-24.2° C). The ice grew worse and worse. Yesterday it brought me to the verge of despair, and when we stopped this morning I had almost decided to turn back. I will go on one day longer, however, to see if the ice is really as bad farther northward as it appears to be from the ridge, 30 feet in height, where we are encamped. We hardly made 4 miles yesterday. Lanes, ridges, and endless rough ice, it looks like an endless moraine of ice-blocks; and this continual lifting of the sledges over every irregularity is enough to tire out giants. Curious this rubble-ice. For the most part it is not so very massive, and seems as if it had been forced up somewhat recently, for it is incompletely covered with thin, loose snow, through which one falls suddenly up to one's middle. And thus it extends mile after mile northward, while every now and then there are old floes, with mounds that have been rounded off by the action of the sun in the summer--often very massive ice.

"I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we are not doing any good here. We shall not be able to get much farther north, and it will be slow work indeed if there be much more of this sort of ice towards Franz Josef Land. On the other hand, we should be able to make much better use of our time there, if we should have any over. 8.30 P.M., -29.2° Fahr. (-34° C.).

"Monday, April 8th. No; the ice grew worse and worse, and we got no way. Ridge after ridge, and nothing but rubble to travel over. We made a start at 2 o'clock or so this morning, and kept at it as long as we could, lifting the sledges all the time; but it grew too bad at last. I went on a good way ahead on snowshoes, but saw no reasonable prospect of advance, and from the highest hummocks only the same kind of ice was to be seen. It was a veritable chaos of ice-blocks, stretching as far as the horizon. There is not much sense in keeping on longer; we are sacrificing valuable time and doing little. If there be much more such ice between here and Franz Josef Land, we shall, indeed, want all the time we have.

"I therefore determined to stop, and shape our course for Cape Fligely.

"On this northernmost camping-ground we indulged in a banquet, consisting of lobscouse, bread-and-butter, dry chocolate, stewed 'tytlebær,' or red whortleberries, and our hot whey drink, and then, with a delightful and unfamiliar feeling of repletion, crept into the dear bag, our best friend. I took a meridian observation yesterday, by which I see that we should be in latitude 86° 10' N., or thereabouts. [15] This morning I took an observation for longitude. At 8.30 A.M., -25.6° Fahr. (-32° C.).

"Tuesday, April 9th. Yesterday's was our first march homeward. We expected the same impracticable ice, but, to our amazement, had not gone far before we came on tolerably good ground, which improved steadily, and, with only a few stoppages, we kept at it till this morning. We came upon ridges, to be sure, but they always allowed themselves to be negotiated pretty easily, and we did well. Started yesterday about two in the afternoon, and kept going until one this morning.

"Thursday, April 11th. Better and better. Found nothing but beautiful level tracks of ice yesterday, with a few ridges, which were easy to get over, and some lanes, with young ice on, which gave us rather more trouble. They ran, however, about in our direction (our course is now the magnetic S. 22° W., or about the true W.S.W.), and we could go alongside them. At last, however, we had to make a crossing, and accomplished it successfully, although the ice bent under us and our sledges more than was desirable. Late in the afternoon we came across a channel, which we proposed to cross in the same way. We reached the other side with the first sledge safely enough, but not so with the other. Hardly had the leaders of the team got out to the dangerous place where the ice was thinnest, and where some water had come up on to it, when they stopped and warily dipped their paws in the water. Then through went one of them, splashing and struggling to get out. The ice began to sink under the weight of the other dogs and the sledge, and the water came flowing up. I dragged dogs and sledge back as quickly as possible, and succeeded in driving them all on to the firm ice again in safety. We tried once again at another place, I running over first on snow-shoes and calling to the dogs, and Johansen pushing behind, but the result was no better than the first time, as 'Suggen' fell in, and we had to go back. Only after a long detour, and very much fagged, did we finally succeed in getting the last two sledges over. We were lucky in finding a good camping-place, and had the warmest night and the most comfortable (I might almost say cozy) morning--spent, be it said, in repairs--that we have had on the trip. I think we did the longest day's march yesterday that we have yet achieved--about 15 miles. Two in the afternoon, -17.6° Fahr. (-27.6° C.).

"Saturday, April 13th. We have traversed nothing but good ice for three days. If this goes on, the return journey will be quicker than I thought. I do not understand this sudden change in the nature of the ice. Can it be that we are travelling in the same direction with the trend of the ridges and irregularities, so that now we go along between them instead of having to make our way over them? The lanes we have come across seem all to point to this; they follow our course pretty closely. We had the misfortune yesterday to let our watches run down; the time between our getting into the bag on the previous night and encamping yesterday was too long. Of course we wound them up again, but the only thing I can now do to find Greenwich mean time is take a time-observation and an observation for latitude, and then estimate the approximate distance from our turning-point on April 8th, when I took the last observation for longitude. By this means the error will hardly be great.

"I conclude that we have not gone less than 14 miles a day on an average the last three days, and have consequently advanced 40 or more miles in a direction S. 22° W. (magnetic). When we stopped here yesterday 'Barbara' was killed. These slaughterings are not very pleasant episodes. Clear weather; at 6.30 this morning -22° Fahr. (-30° C.); wind south (6 to 9 feet).

"April 14th. Easter-day. We were unfortunate with lanes yesterday, and they forced us considerably out of our course. We were stopped at last by a particularly awkward one, and after I had gone alongside it to find a crossing for some distance without success, I thought we had better, in the circumstances, pitch our tent and have a festive Easter-eve. In addition, I wished to reckon out our latitude, longitude, our observation for time, and our variation; it was a question of getting the right time again as quickly as possible. The tent up, and Johansen attending to the dogs, I crept into the bag; but lying thawing in this frozen receptacle, with frozen clothes and shoes, and simultaneously working out an observation and looking up logarithms, with tender, frost-bitten fingers, is not pleasurable, even if the temperature be only -22° Fahr. It is slow work, and Easter-day has had to be devoted to the rest of the calculation, so that we shall not get off before this evening. Meanwhile we had a festive Easter-eve and regaled ourselves with the following delicacies: hot whey and water, fish au gratin, stewed red whortleberries, and lime-juice grog (i.e., lime-juice tablets and a little sugar dissolved in hot water). Simply a splendid dinner; and, having feasted our fill, we at last, at 2 o'clock, crept in under the cover.

"I have calculated our previous latitudes and longitudes over again to see if I can discover any mistake in them. I find that we should yesterday have come farther south than 86° 5.3' N.; but, according to our reckoning, assuming that we covered 50 miles during the three days, we should have come down to 85 degrees and 50 odd minutes. I cannot explain it in any other manner than by the surmise that we have been drifting rapidly northward, which is very good for the Fram, but less so for us. The wind has been southerly the last few days. I assume that we are now in longitude 86° E., and have reckoned the present reading of our watches accordingly. [16] The variation here I find to be 42.5°. Yesterday we steered S. 10° W. (magnetic); to-day I will keep S. 5° W., and to-morrow due south. By way of a change to-day the sky has been overcast; but this evening, when we partook of our second breakfast, the sun was shining cheerily in through the tent-wall. Johansen has patched clothes to-day, while I have made calculations and pricked out the courses. So mild and balmy it has not been before. 10 P. M. -14° Fahr. (-25.6° C.).

"Tuesday, April 16th. As we were about to start off at 1 o'clock yesterday morning, 'Baro' sneaked away before we could harness him; he had seen a couple of the other dogs being put to, and knew what was coming. As I did not wish to lose the dog--he was the best I had in my team--this caused some delay. I called and called, and went peering round the hummocks in search of him, but saw nothing, only the ice-pack, ridge upon ridge disappearing towards the horizon, and farthest north the midnight sun shining over all. The world of ice was dreaming in the bright, cool morning light. We had to leave without the dog, but, to my great delight, I soon caught sight of him far behind us in our wake; I thought I had seen his good face for the last time. He was evidently ashamed of himself, and came and stood quite still, looking up at me imploringly when I took him and harnessed him. I had meant to whip the dog, but his eyes disarmed me.

"We found good passable ice, if not always quite flat, and made satisfactory progress. Some ridges, however, forced us west of our course. Later on in the morning I discovered that I had left my compass behind at some place or other where I had had it out to take our bearings. It could not be dispensed with, so I had to return and look for it. I found it, too, but it was a hard pull-back, and on the way I was inconvenienced for the first time by the heat; the sun scorched quite unpleasantly. When I at last got back to the sledges I felt rather slack; Johansen was sitting on the kayak fast asleep, basking in the sun. Then on again, but the light and warmth made us drowsy and slack, and, try as we would, we seemed to lag; so at ten in the forenoon we decided to camp, and I was not a little surprised, when I took the meteorological observation, to find that the swing-thermometer showed -15.2° Fahr. (-26.2° C.). The tent was accordingly pitched in the broiling sun, and nice and warm it soon was inside. We had a comfortable Easter dinner, which did service for both Easter-day and Easter-Monday. I reckon the distances we covered on Easter-eve and yesterday at about 15 miles, and we should thus be altogether 60 miles on our way home.

"Wednesday, April 17th. -18.4° Fahr. (-28° C.). Yesterday, without doubt, we did our longest day's march. We began at half-past seven in the morning, and ended at about nine at night, with a couple of hours' rest in the bag at dinner-time. The ice was what I should previously have called anything but good; it was throughout extremely uneven, with pressed-up, rather new ice, and older, rounded-off ridges. There were ridges here and there, but progress was possible everywhere, and by lanes, happily, we were not hindered. The snow was rather loose between all the irregularities of the ice; but the dogs hauled alone everywhere, and there is no cause to complain of them. The ice we are now stopping in seems to me to be something like that we had around the Fram. We have about got down to the region where she is drifting. I am certain we did 20 miles yesterday, and the distance homeward should now be altogether 368 miles.

"The weather is glorious nowadays, not so cold as to inconvenience one, and continual clear sunshine, without any wind to signify. There is remarkable equableness and stagnancy in the atmosphere up here, I think. We have travelled over this ice for upward of a month now, and not once have we been stopped on account of bad weather--the same bright sunshine the whole time, with the exception of a couple of days, and even then the sun came out. Existence becomes more and more enjoyable; the cold is gone, and we are pressing forward towards land and summer. It is no trial now to turn out in the mornings, with a good day's march before one, and cook, and lie snug and warm in the bag and dream of the happy future when we get home. Home...?

"Have been engaged on an extensive sartorial undertaking to-day; my trousers were getting the worse for wear. It seems quite mild now to sit and sew in -18° Fahr. in comparison with -40° Fahr. Then certainly it was not enjoyable to ply one's needle.

"Friday, April 19th. We now have provender for the dogs for two or three days more, but I think of saving it a little longer and having the worst dogs eaten first. Yesterday 'Perpetuum' was killed. This killing of the animals, especially the actual slaughtering, is a horrible affair. We have hitherto stuck them with a knife, but it was not very satisfactory. Yesterday, however, we determined to try a new method--strangulation. According to our usual custom, we led the dog away behind a hummock, so that the others should not know what was going on. Then we put a rope round the animal's neck, and each pulled with all his might, but without effect, and at last we could do no more. Our hands were losing all sense of feeling in the cold, and there was nothing for it but to use the knife. Oh, it was horrible! Naturally, to shoot them would be the most convenient and merciful way, but we are loath to expend our precious ammunition on them; the time may come when we shall need it sorely.

"The observations yesterday show that we have got down to 85° 37.8' N., and the longitude should be 79° 26' E. This tallies well with our reckoning. We have gone 50 miles or so since the last observation (April 13th), just what I had assumed beforehand.

"Still the same brilliant sunshine day and night. Yesterday the wind from the north freshened, and is still blowing to-day, but does not trouble us much, as it is behind us. The temperature, which now keeps from about 4° to 22° below zero (Fahr.), can only be described as agreeable. This is undoubtedly fortunate for us; if it were warmer the lanes would keep open a longer time. My greatest desire now is to get under land before the lanes become too bad. What we shall do then must be decided by circumstances.

"Sunday, April 21st. At 4 o'clock yesterday we got under way. During the night we stopped to have something to eat. These halts for dinner, when we take our food and crawl well down to the bottom of the bag, where it is warm and comfortable, are unusually cozy. After a good nap we set off again, but were soon stopped by the ugliest lane we have yet come across. I set off along it to find a passage, but only found myself going through bad rubble. The lane was everywhere equally broad and uncompromising, equally full of aggregated blocks and brash, testifying clearly to the manner in which, during a long period, the ice here has been in motion and been crushed and disintegrated by continual pressure. This was apparent, too, in numerous new ridges of rubble and hummocky ice, and the cracks running in all directions. I finally found a crossing, but when, after a long circuit, I had conveyed the caravan there, it had changed in the interval, and I did not think it advisable to make the attempt. But though I went 'farther than far,' as we say, I only found the same abominable lane, full of lumps of ice, grinning at one, and high pressure-ridges on each side. Things were becoming worse and worse. In several cases these lumps of ice were, I noticed, intermixed with earthy matter. In one place the whole floe, from which blocks had been pressed up into a ridge, was entirely dark-brown in color, but whether this was from mud or from organic matter I did not get near enough to determine. The ridges were fairly high in some places, and reached a height of 25 feet or so. I had a good opportunity here of observing how they assume forms like ice-mountains with high, straight sides, caused by the splitting of old ridges transversely in several directions. I have often on this journey seen massive high hummocks with similar square sides, and of great circumference, sometimes quite resembling snow-covered islands. They are of 'palæocrystic ice,' as good as any one can wish. [17]

"I was constrained at last to return with my mission unaccomplished. Nearly the most annoying thing about it was that on the other side of the lane I could see fine flat ice stretching southward--and now to be obliged to camp here and wait! I had, however, already possessed my soul in patience, when, on coming back to our original stopping-place, I found a tolerably good crossing close by it. We eventually got to the other side, with the ice grinding under our feet the while, and by that time it was 6 o'clock in the morning. We kept at it a little while longer over beautiful flat ice, but the dogs were tired, and it was nearly 48 hours since they had been fed. As we were hastening along we suddenly came across an immense piece of timber sticking up obliquely from the surface of the ice. It was Siberian larch, as far as I could make out, and probably raised in this manner through pressure long ago. Many a good meal could we have cooked with it had we been able to drag it with us, but it was too heavy. We marked it 'F. N., H. J., 85° 30' N.,' and went on our way.

"Plains of ice still before us. I am looking forward to getting under way. Gliding over this flat surface on one's snow-shoes almost reaches the ideal; land and home are nigher, and as one goes along one's thoughts fly southward to everything that is beautiful. Six in the morning, -22° Fahr. (-30° C.).

"Monday, April 22d. If we have made good progress the previous days, yesterday simply outdid itself. I think I may reckon our day's march at 25 miles, but, for the sake of certainty, lump the two last days together and put them down at 40 miles. The dogs, though, are beginning to get tired; it is approaching the time for us to camp. They are impatient for food, and, grown more and more greedy for fresh dog's flesh, throw themselves on it like wolves as soon as a smoking piece, with hair and all on, is thrown to them. 'Kvik' and 'Barnet' only still keep back as long as the flesh is warm, but let it become frozen, and they eat it voraciously. Twelve midnight, -27.8° Fahr. (-33.3° C.).

"Friday, April 26th. -24.7° Fahr. (-31.5° C.). Minimum temperature, -32° Fahr. (-35.7° C.). I was not a little surprised yesterday morning when I suddenly saw the track of an animal in the snow. It was that of a fox, came about W. S. W. true, and went in an easterly direction. The trail was quite fresh. What in the world was that fox doing up here? There were also unequivocal signs that it had not been entirely without food. Were we in the vicinity of land? Involuntarily I looked round for it, but the weather was thick all day yesterday, and we might have been near it without seeing it. It is just as probable, however, that this fox was following up some bear. In any case, a warm-blooded mammal in the eighty-fifth parallel! We had not gone far when we came across another fox-track; it went in about the same direction as the other, and followed the trend of the lane which had stopped us, and by which we had been obliged to camp. It is incomprehensible what these animals live on up here, but presumably they are able to snap up some crustacean in the open waterways. But why do they leave the coasts? That is what puzzles me most. Can they have gone astray? There seems little probability of that. I am eager to see if we may not come across the trail of a bear to-day. It would be quite a pleasure, and it would seem as if we were getting nearer inhabited regions again. I have just pricked out our course on the chart according to our bearings, calculating that we have gone 69 miles in the four days since our last observation, and I do not think this can be excessive. According to this, it should not be much more than 138 miles to Petermann's Land, provided it lie about where Payer determined it. I should have taken an observation yesterday, but it was misty.

"At the end of our day, yesterday, we went across many lanes and piled-up ridges; in one of the latter, which appeared to be quite new, immense pieces of fresh-water ice had been pressed up. They were closely intermixed with clay and gravel, the result of infiltration, so that at a distance the blocks looked dark-brown, and might easily be taken for stone; in fact, I really thought they were stone. I can only imagine that this ice is river ice, probably from Siberia. I often saw huge pieces of fresh-water ice of this kind farther north, and even in latitude 86° there was clay on the ice.

"Sunday, April 28th. We made good way yesterday, presumably 20 miles. We began our march about half-past three in the afternoon the day before yesterday, and kept at it till yesterday morning. Land is drawing nigh, and the exciting time beginning, when we may expect to see something on the horizon. Oh, how I am longing for land, for something under one's feet that is not ice and snow; not to speak of something to rest one's eyes on. Another fox-track yesterday; it went in about the same direction as the previous ones. Later in the day 'Gulen' gave in; it seemed to be a case of complete exhaustion, he could hardly stand on his legs, reeled over, and when we placed him on one of the loads he lay quite still without moving. We had already decided to kill him that day. Poor beast; faithfully he worked for us, good-tempered and willing to the end, and then, for thanks, when he could do no more, to be killed for provender! He was born on the Fram on December 13, 1893, and, true child of the polar night, never saw aught but ice and snow.

"Monday, April 29th, -4°Fahr. (-20° C.). We had not gone far yesterday when we were stopped by open water--a broad pool or lane which lay almost straight across our course. We worked westward alongside it for some distance, until it suddenly began to close violently together at a place where it was comparatively narrow. In a few minutes the ice was towering above us, and we got over by means of the noisy pressure-ridge, which was thundering and crashing under our feet. It was a case of bestirring ourselves and driving dogs and sledges quickly over if we did not wish to get jammed between the rolling blocks of ice. This ridge nearly swallowed up Johansen's snow-shoes, which had been left behind for a minute while we got the last sledge over. When at last we got to the other side of the lane the day was far spent, and such work naturally deserved reward in the shape of an extra ration of meat-chocolate.

"Annoying as it is to be stopped in the midst of beautiful flat ice by a lane, when one is longing to get on, still, undeniably, it is a wonderful feeling to see open water spread out in front of one, and the sun playing on the light ripples caused by the wind. Fancy open water again, and glittering waves, after such a long time. One's thoughts fly back to home and summer. I scanned in vain to see if a seal's head were not visible above the surface, or a bear along the side. The dogs are beginning now to be very much reduced in strength and are difficult to urge on. 'Barnet' was quite done (he was killed this evening), and several of the others are very jaded. Even 'Baro,' my best dog, is beginning to cool in his zeal, to say nothing of 'Kvik'; perhaps I ought to cater a little more generously for them. The wind which was about southeast in the morning subsequently went over to an easterly direction, and I expect, to use Pettersen's customary expression on board for a good southeaster which drove us northward to some purpose, 'a regular devil of a hiding.' I am only surprised the temperature still seems low. I had noticed a thick bank of clouds for a long time along the horizon in the south and southwest, and thought that this must mean land. It now began to grow higher and come nearer us in a suspicious manner. When, after having had dinner, we crept out of the bag, we saw that the sky was entirely clouded over; and that the 'devil of a hiding' had come we felt when we went on.

"I saw another fox-track yesterday; it was almost effaced by the snow, but went in about the same direction as the others. This is the fourth we have come across, and seeing so many of them make me begin to believe seriously in the proximity of land. Yes, I expect to see it every minute; perhaps, though, it will be some days yet. [18]

"Tuesday, April 30th. -6.7° Fahr. (-21.4° C.). Yesterday, in spite of everything, was a bad day. It began well, with brilliant sunshine; was warm (4° below zero Fahr.), and there, bathed in the slumbering sunlight and alluring us on, were stretches of beautiful flat ice. Everything tended to predict a good day's work; but, alas, who could see the ugly dark cracks which ran right across our course, and which were destined to make life a burden to us. The wind had packed the snow well together, and made the surface firm and good, so that we made rapid progress; but we had not gone far before we were stopped by a lane of entirely open water which stretched right across our course. After following it some little distance we eventually found a way across. [19] Not long afterwards we came across another lane running in about the same direction. After a fairly long detour we got safely over this too, with the minor misfortune that three dogs fell into the water. A third lane we also got over, but the fourth was too much for us altogether. It was broad, and we followed it a long way in a westerly direction, but without finding a suitable crossing. Then I continued some three or four miles alone to scan the country, but as I could see no chance of getting over, I returned to Johansen and the sledges. It is a fruitless task, this following a lane running at right angles to one's course. Better to camp and make one's self some good pemmican soup, à la Julienne (it was highly delectable), and then give one's self up to sleep, in the hope of better things in the future. Either the lanes will close together again or they will freeze, now that it is tolerably cold. The weather is quiet, so it is to be hoped new ones will not form. [20] If it keep like this during the days we require to reach land, it will be a good thing; when once we are on land as many lanes may form as they like. Should matters become too bad before that time, there is nothing for us to do but to mend and patch our kayaks. As they are now they will not float. The continual capsizing of the sledges has cut holes in many places, and they would fill the instant they were put on the water."

I ought perhaps to explain here that I had deferred mending the kayaks as long as possible. This was partly because the work would take a long time, and the days were precious, now that it was a question of gaining land before the ice became impracticable; partly, too, because, in the temperature we now had, it would have been difficult to do the work properly; and also because the chances were that they would soon get holes in them again from being upset. In addition to this I was undesirous of crossing lanes at present; they were still covered with young ice, which it would have been difficult to break through, even had it been possible to protect the bows of the kayaks from being cut, by means of a plate of German silver and some extra canvas. As I have mentioned before, not the least drawback was the fact that any water entering the kayaks would immediately have frozen and have been impossible to remove, thus increasing the weight of our loads at each crossing. It was undoubtedly a better plan to go round, even if the way was long, than to incur the hinderances and casualties that the other alternative would, most probably, have occasioned.

To continue quoting from my diary for the same day, I write: "The dogs were at one of our precious pemmican grips last night; they have torn off a corner of the bag and eaten some of its contents, but happily not much. We have been fortunate, inasmuch as they have let the provisions alone hitherto; but now hunger is becoming too much for them, and nature is stronger than discipline.

"Wednesday, May 1st. -12.6° Fahr. (-24.8° C.). I 'half-soled' my Finn shoes to-day with sail-cloth, so I hope they will last a while; I feel as if I could hold my own again now. I have two pairs of Finn shoes, so that for once one pair can be dried in the sun. They have been wet the whole way, and it has made them the worse for wear."

The ice was now growing very bad again and our marches shorter. On Friday, May 3d, I write in my diary: "We did not do so good a day's work yesterday as we expected, although we made some progress. The ice was flat and the going good at one time, and we kept steadily at it for four hours or so; but then came several reaches with lanes and rubble-ice, which, however, we managed to pull through, though the ice was often packing under our feet. By degrees the wind from the southeast increased, and while we were having dinner it veered round to an easterly direction and became rather strong. The ice, too, grew worse, with channels and rubble, and when the wind reached a velocity of 29 to 33 feet in the second, and a driving snow-storm set in, completely obliterating everything around us, stumbling along through it all became anything but attractive. After being delayed several times by newly formed rubble, I saw that the only sensible thing to be done was to camp, if we could find a sheltered spot. This was easier said than done, as the weather was so thick we could hardly see anything; but at last we found a suitable place, and, well content to be under shelter, ate our 'fiskegratin,' and crept into the bag, while the wind rattled the tent walls and made drifts round us outside. We had been constrained to pitch our tent close beside a new ridge, which was hardly desirable, as packing might take place, but we had no choice; it was the only lee to be found. Before I went to sleep the ice under us began to creak, and soon the pressure-ridge behind us was packing with the well-known jerks. I lay listening and wondering whether it would be better for us to turn out before the ice-blocks came tumbling on to us, but as I lay listening went fast asleep and dreamed about an earthquake. When I woke up again, some hours afterwards, everything was quiet except the wind, which howled and rattled at the tent walls, lashing the snow up against them.

"Yesterday evening 'Potifar' was killed. We have now sixteen dogs left; the numbers are diminishing horribly, and it is still so far to land. If only we were there!

"Saturday, May 4th. Did fourteen miles yesterday; but the lanes become worse and worse. When we got under way in the afternoon--after having reloaded my sledge and kayak, and readjusted the dunnage under Johansen's kayak--the wind had fallen, and it was snowing quietly and silently, with big flakes, just as it does on a winter day at home. It was bad in one way, however, as in such a light it is difficult to see if the lay of the ground is against or with us; but the going was fairly good, and we made progress. It was heavenly to work in this mild weather, + 11.8° Fahr. (-11.3° C.), and be able to use one's frost-bitten hands bare, without suffering torture untold every time they came in contact with anything.

"Our life, however, was soon embittered by open water-ways. By means of a circuitous route, and the expenditure of much valuable time, we at last succeeded in getting over them. Then came long stretches of good ice, and we went cheerfully on our way; by-and-bye, too, the sun peeped out. It is wonderful what such encouragement does for one. A little while ago, when I was ploughing alongside a horrible lane, through rubble and over ridges, without a sign of any means of getting on, I was ready to sink from exhaustion at every step; no pleasure then could compare with that of being able to crawl into the bag; and now, when luck again sheds her smiles on one and progress is before one, all weariness is suddenly dissipated.

"During the night the ice began to be bad in earnest, lane after lane, the one worse than the other, and they were only overcome by deviations and intricate by-ways. It was terrible work, and when the wind increased to a good 'mill-breeze' matters became desperate. This is indeed toil without ceasing; what would I not give to have land, to have a certain way before me, to be able to reckon on a certain day's march, and be free from this never-ending anxiety and uncertainty about the lanes. Nobody can tell how much trouble they may yet cause us, and what adversities we may have to go through before we reach land; and meanwhile the dogs are diminishing steadily. They haul all they can, poor things, but what good does it do? I am so tired that I stagger on my snow-shoes, and when I fall down only wish to lie there to save myself the trouble of getting up again. But everything changes, and we shall get to land in time.

"At five this morning we came to a broad lane, and as it was almost impossible to get the dogs on any farther, we camped. Once well down in the bag with a pot of savory-smelling lobscouse in front of one, a feeling of well-being is the result, which neither lanes nor anything else can disturb.

"The ice we have gone through has, on the whole, been flat, with the exception of the newly formed lanes and rubble. These appear, however, for the most part in limited stretches, with extensive flat ice between, as yesterday. All the channels seem in the main to go in the same direction--about straight across our course, with a little deflection towards the southwest. They run about northeast to west-southwest (by compass). This morning the temperature had again sunk to +0.1° Fahr. (-17.8° C.), after having been up at +12.2° Fahr. (-11° C.), and therefore I am still in hopes that the water may freeze within a reasonable time. Perhaps it is wrong of us to curse this wind, for on board the Fram they are rejoicing that a southeaster has at last sprung up. However, in spite of our maledictions, I am really glad for their sake, although I could wish it deferred till we reach land.

"Wednesday, May 8th. The lanes still appear regularly in certain places--as a rule, where the ice is very uneven, and where there are old and new ridges alternately; between these places there are long, flat stretches of ice without lanes. These are often perfectly even, almost like 'inland ice.' The direction of the lanes is, as before, very often athwart our course, or a little more southwesterly. Others, again, seem to go in about the same direction as we do. This ice is extraordinary; it seems to become more and more even as we approach land, instead of the contrary, as we expected. If it would only keep so! It is considerably flatter than it was about the Fram, it seems to me. There are no really impracticable places, and the irregularities there are seen to be of small dimensions--rubble-ice, and so forth; no huge mounds and ridges, as we had farther north. Some of the lanes here are narrow, and so far new that the water was only covered with brash. This can be deceptive enough; it appears to be even ice, but thrust one's staff in, and it goes right through and into the water.

"This morning I made out our latitude and longitude. The former was (Sunday, May 5th) 84° 31' N., and the latter 66° 15' E. We were not so far south as I expected, but considerably farther west. It is the drift which has put us back and westward. I shall, therefore, for the future, steer a more southerly course than before, about due south (true), as we are still drifting westward, and, above everything, I am afraid of getting too far in that direction. It is to be hoped that we shall soon have land in sight, and we shall then know where to steer. We undoubtedly ought to be there now.

"No dog was killed yesterday, as there were two-thirds left of 'Ulenka' from the previous day, which provided an abundant repast. I now only intend to slaughter one every other day, and perhaps we shall soon come across a bear.

"Thursday, May 9th. +9° Fahr. (-13.3° C.). Yesterday was a fairly good day. The ice was certainly not first-rate, rather rubbly, and the going heavy, but all the same we are making steady way forward. There were long, flat stretches every now and then. The weather had become quite fine when we got under way, about 3 o'clock this morning. The sun was shining through light cumulus clouds. It was hard work, however, making head against the ice, and soon the fog came down with the wind, which still blew from the same direction (N.N.E.).

"The work of hauling becomes heavier and heavier for the dogs, in proportion as their numbers diminished. The wooden runners, too (the under-runners), do not seem to ride well. I have long thought of taking them off, and to-day really decided to try the sledges without them. In spite of everything the dogs keep a very even pace, with only a halt now and then. Yesterday there were only four dogs for my sledge. One of them, 'Flint,' slipped his harness and ran away, and we did not get hold of him again before the evening, when he was killed by way of punishment. The ice was all along more uneven than it has been the last few days. In the afternoon the weather thickened, and the wind increased till, at about 3 o'clock, a regular snow-storm was raging. No way was to be seen, only whiteness everywhere, except in places where the pointed blue ice from the ridges stuck up through the snow-drifts. After a while the ice grew worse, and I went headlong on to ridges and irregularities without even seeing them. I hoped this was only rough ice which we should pass through, but matters did not improve, and we thought there was no sense in going on. Luckily we had just then dropped on a good sheltered camping-ground; otherwise it would have been difficult enough to find one in such weather, where nothing could be discerned. Meanwhile we are getting southward, and are more and more surprised at not seeing signs of land. We reckon now to have left the eighty-fourth parallel behind us.

"Friday, May 10th. +16.2° Fahr. (-8.8° C.). Our life has many difficulties to combat. Yesterday promised to be a good day, but thick weather hindered our advance. When we crept out of the tent yesterday forenoon it was fine, the sun was shining, the going was unusually good, and the ice appeared to be unusually even. We had managed in the snow-storm of the previous evening to get into a belt of foul ice, which was merely local. Before we started we thought of taking the removable wooden runners off the sledges, but on trying mine beforehand found that it ran well as it was. I decided, therefore, to wait a little longer, as I was afraid that removing the wooden runners might weaken the sledge. Johansen, meanwhile, had taken them off the middle sledge; but as we then discovered that one of the birch runners had split right across under one of the uprights, there was nothing for it but to put it on again. It was a pity, though, as the sledge would have run much better on the newly tarred runners than on the scratched under-runners. We made fairly good progress, in spite of there being only 13 dogs left--4 to my sledge, 4 to the birch sledge, and 5 to Johansen's. But later in the afternoon the weather thickened rapidly and snow began to fall, which prevented our seeing anything before us. The ice, however, was fairly even, and we kept going. We came across a lane, but this we crossed by means of a detour. Not long afterwards again we got among a number of abominable pressure-ridges, and ran right into high mounds and over steep brinks without seeing them. Wherever one turned there were sudden drops and pitfalls, although everything looked so fair and even under its covering of still-falling snow. As there seemed to be little good in continuing, we decided to camp, have our dinner of savory hot lobscouse, make out our longitude, and then pass the time until it should clear again; and if this did not take place soon, then have a good sleep and be ready to get under way as soon as the weather should permit. After having slept for a couple of hours (it was 1 o'clock in the morning), I turned out of the tent and was confronted with the same thick, overcast weather, with only a strip of clear blue sky down by the horizon in the southwest, so I let Johansen sleep on and reckoned out our longitude, which proved to be 64° 20' E. We have drifted considerably westward since I last made it out, if my calculations be right. While I was thus occupied I heard a suspicious gnawing noise outside in the direction of the kayaks. I listened, and--quite right--it was the dogs up in Johansen's kayak. I ran out, caught 'Haren,' who was just lying gnawing at the portions of fresh dogs' flesh destined for to-morrow's consumption, and gave him a good thrashing for his pains. The casing over the opening in the kayak was then properly secured, and snow-shoes and sticks piled on.

"The weather is still the same, overcast and thick; but the wind has veered round to a more southerly direction, and the clear strip of blue sky in the southwest has risen a little higher from the ice-margin--can there be a west wind in prospect? Welcome, indeed, would it be, and longing were the glances I directed towards that blue strip--there lay sunshine and progress; perhaps even land was beneath it. I could see the cumulus clouds sailing through the blue atmosphere, and thought if only we were there, only had land under us, then all our troubles would sink into oblivion. But material needs must not be forgotten, and, perhaps, it would be better to get into the bag and have a good sleep while waiting. Many times in the morning did I peep out of the tent, but always saw the same cloudy sky and the same white prospect wherever the eye turned. Down in the west and southwest was always the same strip of clear blue sky, only that now it was lower again. When we at last turned out in the forenoon the weather was just the same, and the azure strip on the horizon in the southwest was still there. I think it must have something to do with land, and it gives me hope that this may not be so far off. It is a tougher job than we thought, this gaining land, but we have had many enemies to make headway against--not only foul ice and bad going, but also wind, water, and thick weather--all of them equally obdurate adversaries to overcome.

"Sunday, May 12th. +0.6° Fahr. (-17.5° C.). Yesterday we had a better time than we expected. Overcast and thick it was the whole time, and we felt our way rather than saw it. The ice was not particularly good either, but we pressed onward, and had the satisfaction now and then of travelling over several long stretches of flat ice. A couple of channels which had partly opened hindered us somewhat. Curiously enough the strip of clear sky was still there in the S.S.W. (true), and as we went along rose higher in the heavens. We kept expecting it to spread, and that the weather would clear; we needed it sorely to find our way; but the strip never rose any higher, and yet remained there equally clear. Then it sank again, and only a small rim was left visible on the margin of the sky. Then this also disappeared. I cannot help thinking that this strip must have had something to do with land. At 7 o'clock this morning we came to a belt of ice as bad, almost, as I have ever seen it, and as I thought it unadvisable to make an onslaught in such thick weather, we encamped. I hope we did our 14 miles, and can reckon on only 90 more to land, if it lie in 83° latitude. The ice is undoubtedly of a different character from what it was previously: it is less even, and old lanes and new ones, with ridges and rubble, are more frequent--all seeming to point to the vicinity of land.

"Meanwhile time is going, and the number of dogs diminishing. We have now 12 left; yesterday 'Katta' was killed. And our provisions are also gradually on the decrease, though, thank Heaven, we have a good deal remaining. The first tin of petroleum (2 1/2 gallons) came to an end three days ago, and we shall soon have finished our second sack of bread. We do nothing but scan the horizon longingly for land, but see nothing, even when I climb up on to the highest hummocks with the telescope.

"Monday, May 13th. +8.6° Fahr. (-13° C.); minimum +6.6° Fahr. (-14.2° C.). This is, indeed, a toilsome existence. The number of the dogs, and likewise their hauling powers, diminish by degrees, and they are inert and difficult to urge on. The ice grows worse and worse as we approach land, and is, besides, covered with much deeper and looser snow than before. It is particularly difficult to get on in the broken-up ice, where the snow, although it covers up many irregularities, at the same time lets one sink through almost up to one's thighs between the pieces of ice as soon as one takes one's snow-shoes off to help the sledge. It is extremely tiring and shaky on this sort of surface to use one's snow-shoes not firmly secured to the feet, but one cannot have them properly fastened on when one has to help the dogs at any moment or pull and tug at these eternal sledges. I think in snow such as this Indian snow-shoes would be preferable, and I only wish I had some. Meanwhile, however, we covered some ground yesterday, and if I reckon 20 miles for yesterday and to-day together I do not think I shall be very far out. We should thus have only about 50 miles to the 83d parallel and the land which Payer determined. We are keeping a somewhat southerly course, about due south (true), as this continual east wind is certainly driving us westward, and I do not like the idea of drifting west past land. It is beginning to be tolerably warm inside the bag at night now, and last night I could hardly sleep for heat.

"Tuesday, May 14th. +6.8° Fahr. (-14° C.). Yesterday was a cozy day of rest. Just as we were about to get under way after breakfast it clouded over, and a dense snow-storm set in, so that to start out in such weather, in the uneven ice we have now before us, would not have been worth while. I therefore made up my mind to halt for the time being and get some trifles done, and in particular the shifting of the load from the birch sledge on to the two others, and so at last get rid of this third sledge, for which we can no longer spare any dogs. This took some time; and as it was absolutely necessary to do it, we lost nothing by stopping for a day.

"We had now so much wood from the sledge, together with broken snow-shoe staves and the results of other casualties, that I thought we should be able to use it as fuel for some time to come, and so save the petroleum. We accordingly made a fire of it to cook the supper with, contrived a cooking-pot out of the empty petroleum tin, and hung it over in the approved fashion. At the first start-off we lighted the fire just outside the tent door, but soon gave that up, as, for the first thing, we nearly burned up the tent, and, secondly, the smoke came in till we could hardly see out of our eyes. But it warmed well and looked wonderfully cheerful. Then we moved it farther off, where it could neither burn up the tent nor smoke us out; but therewith all the joy of it was departed. When we had about burned up the whole sledge and succeeded in getting a pot of boiling water, with the further result of having nearly melted the floe through on which we were living, I gave up the idea of cooking with sledges and went back to our trusty friend, the 'Primus'--and a sociable and entertaining friend, too, which one can have by one's side as one lies in the bag. We have as much petroleum, I should imagine, as we shall require for the journey before us, and why bother about anything else? If the petroleum should come to an end too soon, why, then we can get as much train-oil from bear and seal and walrus as we shall require. I am very anxious to see the result of our reloading. Our two kayak sledges have undoubtedly become somewhat heavier, but then we shall have six dogs to each as long as they last. Our patience has been rewarded at last with the most brilliant sunshine and sparkling sky. It is so warm in the tent that I am lying basking in the heat. One might almost think one's self under an awning on a summer's day at home. Last night it was almost too warm to sleep."

The ice kept practicable to a certain extent during these days, though the lanes provided us with many an obstacle to overcome. Then, in addition to this, the dogs' strength was failing, they were ready to stop at the slightest unevenness, and we did not make much way. On Thursday, May 16th, I write in my diary: "Several of the dogs seem to be much exhausted. 'Baro' (the leader of my team) gave in yesterday. He could hardly move at last, and was slaughtered for supper. Poor animal. He hauled faithfully to the end.

"It was Johansen's birthday yesterday; he completed his twenty-eighth year, and of course a feast was held in honor of the occasion. It consisted of lobscouse, his favorite dish, followed by some good hot lime-juice grog. The midday sun made it warm and comfortable in the tent. 6 A.M., +3.6° Fahr. (-15.8° C.).

"Have to-day calculated our latitude and longitude for yesterday, and find it was 83° 36' N. and 59° 55' E. Our latitude agrees exactly with what I supposed, according to the dead reckoning, but our longitude is almost alarmingly westerly, in spite of the fact that our course has been the whole time somewhat southerly. There appears to be a strong drift in the ice here, and it will be better for us to keep east of the south, in order not to drift past land. To be quite certain, I have again reckoned out our observations of April 7th and 8th, but find no error, and cannot think otherwise than that we are about right. Still it seems remarkable that we have not yet seen any signs of land. 10 P.M., +1.4° Fahr. (-17° C.).

"Friday, May 17th. +12.4° Fahr. (-10.9° C.); minimum, -19° C. To-day is the 'Seventeenth of May'--Constitution-day. I felt quite certain that by to-day, at any rate, we should have been on land somewhere or other, but fate wills otherwise; we have not even seen a sign of it yet. Alas! here I lie in the bag, dreaming day-dreams and thinking of all the rejoicings at home, of the children's processions and the undulating mass of people at this moment in the streets. How welcome a sight to see the flags, with their red bunting, waving in the blue spring atmosphere, and the sun shining through the delicate young green of the leaves. And here we are in drifting ice, not knowing exactly where we are, uncertain as to our distance from an unknown land, where we hope to find means of sustaining life and thence carve our way on towards home, with two teams of dogs whose numbers and strength diminish day by day, with ice and water between us and our goal which may cause us untold trouble, with sledges which now, at any rate, are too heavy for our own powers. We press laboriously onward mile by mile; and meanwhile, perhaps, the drift of the ice is carrying us westward out to sea, beyond the land we are striving for. A toilsome life, undeniably, but there will be an end to it some time; some time we shall reach it, and meanwhile our flag for the 'Seventeenth of May' shall wave above the eighty-third parallel, and if fate send us the first sight of land to-day our joy will be two-fold.

"Yesterday was a hard day. The weather was fine, even brilliant, the going splendid, and the ice good, so that one had a right to expect progress were it not for the dogs. They pull up at everything, and for the man ahead it is a continual going over the same ground three times: first to find a way and make a track, and then back again to drive on the dogs; it is slow work indeed. Across quite flat ice the dogs keep up to the mark pretty well, but at the first difficulty they stop. I tried harnessing myself in front of them yesterday, and it answered pretty well; but when it came to finding the way in foul ice it had to be abandoned.

"In spite of everything, we are pushing forward, and eventually shall have our reward; but for the time being this would be ample could we only reach land and land-ice without these execrable lanes. Yesterday we had four of them. The first that stopped us did not cause immoderate trouble; then we went over a short bit of middling ice, though, with lane after lane and ridges. Then came another bad lane, necessitating a circuit. After this we traversed some fairly good ice, this time considerably more of it than previously, but soon came to a lane, or rather a pool, of greater size than we had ever seen before--exactly what the Russians would call a 'polynja.' It was covered with young ice, too weak to bear. We started confidently alongside it in a southwesterly direction (true), in the belief that we should soon find a way across; but 'soon' did not come. Just where we expected to find a crossing, an overwhelming sight presented itself to our gaze; the pool stretched away in a southwesterly direction to the very horizon, and we could see no end to it! In the mirage on the horizon, a couple of detached blocks of ice rose above the level of the pool; they appeared to be floating in open water, changed constantly in shape, and disappeared and reappeared. Everything seemed to indicate that the pool debouched right into the sea in the west. From the top of a high hummock I could, however, with the glass, see ice on the other side, heightened by the looming. But it was anything but certain that it really was situated at the western end of the pool; more probably, it indicated a curve in the direction of the latter. What was to be done here? To get over seemed for the moment an impossibility. The ice was too thin to bear and too thick to set the kayaks through, even if we should mend them. How long it might take at this time of year for the ice to become strong enough to bear, I did not know, but one day would scarcely do it. To settle down and wait, therefore, seemed too much. How far the pool extended and how long we might have to travel along it before we found a crossing and could again keep to our course no one could tell; but the probability was a long time--perhaps days. On the other hand, to retreat in the direction whence we came seemed an unattractive alternative; it would lead us away from our goal, and also perhaps necessitate a long journey in an opposite direction before we could find a crossing. The pool extended true S. 50° W. To follow it would undoubtedly take us out of our course, which ought now properly to be east of south; but on the whole this direction was nearest the line of our advance, and consequently we decided to try it. After a short time we came to a new lane running in a transverse direction to the pool. Here the ice was strong enough to bear, and on examining the ice on the pool itself beyond the confluence of this lane I found a belt where the young ice had, through pressure, been jammed up in several layers. This happily was strong enough to bear, and we got safely over the pool, the trend of which we had been prepared to follow for days. Then on we went again, though in toil and tribulation, until at half-past eight in the evening we again found ourselves confronted by a pool or lane of exactly the same description as the former one, with the exception only that this time the view to the 'sea' opened towards the northeast, while in the southwest the sky-line was closed in by ice. The lane also was covered with young ice, which in the middle was obviously of the same age as that on the last pool. Near the edge there was some thicker and older ice, which would bear, and over which I went on snowshoes to look for a crossing, but found none as far as I went. The strip of ice along the middle, sometimes broad and sometimes narrow, was everywhere too thin to risk taking the sledges over. We consequently decided to camp and wait till to-day, when it is to be hoped the ice will be strong enough to bear. And here we are still with the same lane in front of us. Heaven only knows what surprises the day will bring.

"Sunday, May 19th. The surprise which the Seventeenth brought us was nothing less than that we found the lanes about here full of narwhals. When we had just got under way, and were about to cross over the lane we had been stopped by the previous day, I became aware of a breathing noise, just like the blowing of whales. I thought at first it must be from the dogs, but then I heard for certain that the sound came from the lane. I listened. Johansen had heard the noise the whole morning, he said, but thought it was only ice jamming in the distance. No, that sound I knew well enough, I thought, and looked over towards an opening in the ice whence I thought it proceeded. Suddenly I saw a movement which could hardly be falling ice, and--quite right--up came the head of a whale; then came the body; it executed the well-known curve, and disappeared. Then up came another, accompanied by the same sound. There was a whole school of them. I shouted that they were whales, and, running to the sledge, had my gun out in a second. Then came the adjusting of a harpoon, and after a little work this was accomplished, and I was ready to start in pursuit. Meanwhile the animals had disappeared from the opening in the ice where I had first seen them, though I heard their breathing from some openings farther east. I followed the lane in that direction, but did not come within range, although I got rather near them once or twice. They came up in comparatively small openings in the ice, which were to be found along the whole length of the lane. There was every prospect of being able to get a shot at them if we stopped for a day to watch the holes; but we had no time to spare, and could not have taken much with us had we got one, as the sledges were heavy enough already. We soon found a passage over, and continued our journey with the flags hoisted on the sledges in honor of the day. As we were going so slowly now that it was hardly possible for things to be worse, I determined at our dinner-hour that I really would take off the under-runners from my sledge. The change was unmistakable; it was not like the same sledge. Henceforth we got on well, and after a while the under-runners from Johansen's sledge were also removed. As we furthermore came on some good ice later in the day, our progress was quite unexpectedly good, and when we stopped at half-past eleven yesterday morning, I should think we had gone 10 miles during our day's march. This brings us down to latitude 83° 20' or so.

"At last, then, we have come down to latitudes which have been reached by human beings before us, and it cannot possibly be far to land. A little while before we halted yesterday we crossed a lane or pool exactly like the two previous ones, only broader still. Here, too, I heard the blowing of whales, but although I was not far from the hole whence the noise presumably came, and although the opening there was quite small, I could perceive nothing. Johansen, who came afterwards with the dogs, said that as soon as they reached the frozen lane they got scent of something and wanted to go against the wind. Curious that there should be so many narwhals in the lanes here.

"The ice we are now travelling over is surprisingly bad. There are few or no new ridges, only small older irregularities, with now and then deep snow in between, and then these curious broad, endless lanes, which resemble each other, and run exactly parallel, and are all unlike those we have met before. They are remarkable from the fact that, while formerly I always observed the ice on the north side of the lane to drift westward, in comparison with that which lay on the south side, the reverse was here the case. It was the ice on the south side which drifted westward.

"As I am afraid that we are continually drifting rapidly westward, I have kept a somewhat easterly course--S.S.E. or east of that, according as the drift necessitates. We kept the Seventeenth of May--on the 18th, it is true--by a feast of unsurpassed magnificence, consisting of lobscouse, stewed red whortleberries mixed with vril-food, and stamina lime-juice mead (i.e., a concoction of lime-juice tablets and Frame Food stamina tablets dissolved in water), and then, having eaten our fill, crawled into our bag."

As we gradually made our way southward the ice became more impracticable and difficult to travel over. We still came across occasional good flat plains, but they were often broken up by broad belts of jammed-up ice, and in a measure by channels, which hindered our advance. On May 19th I write: "I climbed to the top of the highest hummock I have yet been up. I measured it roughly, and made it out to be about 24 feet above the ice whence I had climbed up; but, as this latter was considerably above the surface of the water, the height was probably 30 feet or so. It formed the crest of quite a short and crooked pressure-ridge, consisting of only small pieces of ice."

That day we came across the first tracks of bears which we had seen on our journey over the ice. The certainty that we had got down to regions where these animals are to be found, and the prospect of a ham, made us very joyous. On May 20th there was a tremendous snow-storm, through which it was impossible to see our way on the uneven ice. "Consequently there is nothing for it but to creep under the cover again and sleep as long as one can. Hunger at last, though, is too much for us, and I turn out to make a stew of delicious liver 'pâté.' Then a cup of whey drink, and into the bag again, to write or slumber as we list. Here we are, with nothing to do but to wait till the weather changes and we can go on.

"We can hardly be far from 83° 10' N., and should have gained Petermann's Land if it be where Payer supposed. Either we must be unconscionably out of our bearings, or the country very small. Meanwhile, I suppose, this east wind is driving us westward, out to sea, in the direction of Spitzbergen. Heaven alone knows what the velocity of the drift may be here. Oh, well, I am not in the least downhearted. We still have 10 dogs, and should we drift past Cape Fligely, there is land enough west of us, and that we can hardly mistake. Starve we scarcely can; and if the worst should come to the worst, and we have to make up our minds to winter up here, we can face that too--if only there was nobody waiting at home. But we shall get back before the winter. The barometer is falling steadily, so that it will be a case of patience long drawn out, but we shall manage all right."

On the afternoon of the following day (May 21st) we were at last able to get off, though the weather was still thick and snowy, and we often staggered along like blind men. "As the wind was strong and right at our back, and as the ice was fairly even, I at last put a sail to my sledge. It almost went by itself, but did not in the least change the dogs' pace; they kept the same slow time as before. Poor beasts, they become more and more tired, and the going is heavy and loose. We passed over many newly frozen pools that day, and some time previously there must have been a remarkable quantity of open water.

"I do not think I exceed when I put down our day's march at 14 miles, and we ought to have latitude 83° behind us, but as yet no sign of land. This is becoming rather exciting.

"Friday, May 24th. +18.8° Fahr. (-7.4° C.). Minimum -11.4° C. Yesterday was the worst day we have yet had. The lane we had before us when we stopped the previous day proved to be worse than any of the others had been. After breakfast at 1 A.M., and while Johansen was engaged in patching the tent, I trudged off to look for a passage across, but was away for three hours without finding any. There was nothing for it but to follow the bend of the lane eastward and trust to getting over eventually, but it turned out to be a longer job than we had anticipated. When we came to the place where it appeared to end, the surrounding ice-mass was broken up in all directions, and the floes were grinding against each other as they tore along. There was no safe passage across to be found anywhere. Where at one moment, perhaps, I might have crossed over, at the next, when I had brought the sledges up, there was only open water. Meanwhile we executed some intricate manoeuvring from floe to floe, always farther east, in order to get round. The ice jammed under and around us, and it was often a difficult matter to get through. Often did we think we were well across, when still worse lanes and cracks in front of us met our disappointed gaze. It was enough sometimes to make one despair.

"There seemed to be no end to it; wherever one turned were yawning channels. On the overcast sky the dark, threatening reflection of water was to be seen in all directions. It really seemed as if the ice was entirely broken up. Hungry and almost tired to death we were, but determined, if possible, to have our troubles behind us before we stopped for dinner. But at last matters came to a hopeless pitch, and at 1 o'clock, after nine hours' work, we decided to have a meal. It is a remarkable fact that, let things be as bad as they may, once in the bag, and with food in prospect, all one's troubles sink into oblivion. The human being becomes a happy animal, which eats as long as it can keep its eyes open, and goes to sleep with the food in its mouth. Oh, blissful state of heedlessness! But at 4 o'clock we had to turn to again at the apparently hopeless task of threading the maze of lanes. As a last drop in our cup of misery the weather became so thick and shadowless that one literally could not see if one were walking up against a wall of ice or plunging into a pit. Alas, we have only too much of this mist! How many lanes and cracks we went across, how many huge ridges we clambered over, dragging the heavy sledges after us, I cannot say, but very many. They twisted and turned in all directions, and water and slush met us everywhere.

"But everything comes to an end, and so did this. After another two-and-a-half hours' severe exertion we had put the last lane behind us, and before us lay a lovely plain. Altogether we had now been at this sort of work for nearly twelve hours, and I had, in addition, followed the lane for three hours in the morning, which made fifteen altogether. We were thoroughly done, and wet too. How many times we had gone through the deceptive crust of snow which hides the water between the pieces of ice it is impossible to say. Once during the morning I had had a narrow escape. I was going confidently along on snow-shoes over what I supposed to be solid ice when suddenly the ground began to sink beneath me. Happily there were some pieces of ice not far off on which I succeeded in throwing myself, while the water washed over the snow I had just been standing on. I might have had a long swim for it through the slush, which would have been anything but pleasant, particularly seeing that I was alone.

"At last we had level ice before us; but, alas! our happiness was destined to be short-lived. From the dark belt of clouds on the sky we saw that a new channel was in prospect, and at eight in the evening we had reached it. I was too tired to follow the trend of the lane (it was not short) in order to find a crossing, particularly as another channel was visible behind it. It was also impossible to see the ice around one in the heavily falling snow. It was only a question, therefore, of finding a camping-place, but this was easier said than done. A strong north wind was blowing, and no shelter was to be found from it on the level ice we had just got on to. Every mound and irregularity was examined as we passed by it in the snow-storm, but all were too small. We had to content ourselves at last with a little pressed-up hummock, which we could just get under the lee of. Then, again, there was too little snow, and only after considerable work did we succeed in pitching the tent. At last, however, the 'Primus' was singing cheerily inside it, the 'fiskegratin' diffusing its savory odor, and two happy beings were ensconced comfortably inside the bag, enjoying existence and satisfied, if not, indeed, at having done a good day's march, yet in the knowledge of having overcome a difficulty.

"While we were having breakfast to-day I went out and took a meridian altitude, which, to our delight, made us 82° 52' N.

"Sunday, May 26th. When the ice is as uneven as it is now, the difficulty of making headway is incredible. The snow is loose, and if one takes one's snow-shoes off for a moment one sinks in above one's knees. It is impossible to fasten them on securely, as every minute one must help the dogs with the sledges. Added to this, if the weather be thick, as yesterday, one is apt to run into the largest ridges or snow-drifts without seeing them; everything is equally white under its covering of new snow, and the light comes from all directions, so that it throws no shadows. Then one plunges in headlong, and with difficulty can get up and on to one's snow-shoes again. This takes place continually, and the longer it lasts the worse it gets. At last one literally staggers on one's snow-shoes from fatigue, just as if one were drunk. But we are gaining ground, and that is the chief thing, be one's shins ever so bruised and tender. This manner of progress is particularly injurious to the ankles, on account of the constant unsteadiness and swerving of the snow-shoes, and many a day have mine been much swollen. The dogs, too, are becoming exhausted, which is worse.

"I have to-day reckoned out the observations made yesterday, and find, to our joy, that the longitude is 61° 27' E., so that we have not drifted westward, but have come about south, according to our course. My constant fear of drifting past land is thus unfounded, and we should be able to reckon on reaching it before very long. We may possibly be farther east than we suppose, but hardly farther west, so that if we now go due south for a while, and then southwest, we must meet with land, and this within not many days. I reckon that we did 20 miles southward yesterday, and should thus be now in latitude 82° 40' N. A couple more days, and our latitude will be very satisfactory.

"The ice we have before us looks practicable, but, to judge by the sky, we have a number of water-ways a little farther on; we must manage somehow to fight our way across them. I should be very reluctant to mend the kayaks just now, before we have reached land and firm land ice. They require a thorough overhauling, both as to frames and covers. My one thought now is to get on while we still have some dogs, and thus use them up.

"A comfortable Sunday morning in the tent to-day. These observations put me in good spirits; life seems to look bright before us. Soon we must be able to start homeward at good speed and across open water. Oh, what a pleasure it will be to handle paddle and gun again, instead of this continual toil with the sledges! Then, too, the shouting to the dogs to go on--it seems to wear and tear one's ears and every nerve in one's body.

"Monday, May 27th. Ever since yesterday morning we have seen the looming of water on the sky; it is the same looming that we saw on the previous day, and I set our course direct for the place where, to judge by it, there should be the greatest accumulation of ice, and where, consequently, a crossing should be easiest. During the course of the afternoon we came on one lane after the other, just as the water-sky had denoted, and towards evening the dark heavens before us augured open water of a worse kind. The reflection was particularly dark and threatening, both in the west and in the east. By 7 o'clock I could see a broad lane before us, stretching away west and east as far as the eye could reach from the highest hummock. It was broad, and appeared to be more impracticable than any of the previous ones. As the dogs were tired, our day's march had been a good one, and we had a splendid camping-place ready to hand, we decided to pitch the tent. Well satisfied and certain that we were now in latitude 82 1/2°, and that land must inevitably be near, we disappeared into the bag.

"During breakfast this morning I went out and took a meridian altitude. It proves that we have not deceived ourselves. We are in latitude 82° 30' N., perhaps even a minute or two farther south. But it is growing more and more remarkable that we see no sign of land. I cannot explain it in any other way than that we are some degrees farther east than we suppose. [21] That we should be so much farther west as to enable us to pass entirely clear of Petermann's Land and Oscar's Land, and not so much as get a glimpse of them, I consider an impossibility. I have again looked at our former observations; have again gone through our dead reckoning, the velocity and directions of the wind, and all the possibilities of drift during the days which passed between our last certain observation for longitude (April 8th) and the day when, according to the dead reckoning, we assumed ourselves to be in longitude 86° E. (April 13th). That there should be any great mistake is inconceivable. The ice can hardly have had such a considerable drift during those particular days, seeing that our dead reckoning in other respects tallied so well with the observations.

"Yesterday evening 'Kvik' was slaughtered. Poor thing, she was quite worn out, and did little or nothing in the hauling line. I was sorry to part with her, but what was to be done? Even if we should get fresh meat, it would have taken some time to feed her up again, and then, perhaps, we should have had no use for her, and should only have had to kill her, after all. But a fine big animal she was, and provided food for three days for our remaining eight dogs.

"I am in a continual state of wonderment at the ice we are now travelling over. It is flat and good, with only smallish pieces of broken-up ice lying about, and a large mound or small ridge here and there, but all of it is ice which can hardly be winter-old, or at any rate has been formed since last summer. It is quite a rarity to come across a small tract of older ice, or even a single old floe which has lain the summer through--so rare, in fact, that at our last camping-place it was impossible to find any ice which had been exposed to the summer sun, and consequently freed from salt. We were obliged to be content with snow for our drinking-water. [22] Certain it is that where these great expanses of flat ice come from there was open water last summer or autumn, and that of no little extent, as we have passed over many miles of this compact ice the whole day yesterday and a good part of the previous day, besides which there were formerly a considerable number of such tracts in between older, summer-old ice. There is little probability that this should have been formed in the vicinity hereabouts. More probably it has come from farther east or southeast, and was formed in open water on the east side of Wilczek's Land. I believe, consequently, that this must indicate that there can be not a little open water along the east or northeast coast of Wilczek's Land in the summer or autumn months. [23]

"Now followed a time when the lanes grew worse than ever, and we began to toil in grim earnest. Lanes and cracks went crosswise in every direction. The ice was sometimes uneven, and the surface loose and heavy between the irregularities.

"If one could get a bird's-eye view of this ice, the lanes would form a veritable net-work of irregular meshes. Woe to him who lets himself get entangled in it!

"Wednesday, May 29th. Yesterday I inaugurated a great change, and began with 'komager.' It was an agreeable transition. One's feet keep nice and dry now, and one is furthermore saved the trouble of attending to the Finn shoes [24] night and morning. They were beginning in this mild temperature to assume a texture like our native 'lefser,' a kind of tough rye-cake. Then, too, one need no longer sleep with wet rags on one's chest and legs to dry them."

That day we saw our first bird; a fulmar (Procellaria glacialis).

"Thursday, May 30th. At 5 o'clock yesterday morning we set forth with the buoyancy born of the belief that now at last the whole network of lanes was behind us; but we had not gone far before the reflection of new channels appeared in front. I climbed up on to a hummock as quickly as possible, but the sight which met my eyes was anything but enlivening--lane after lane, crossing and recrossing, in front of us and on each side, as far as the eye could reach. It looked as if it mattered little what direction we chose: it would be of no avail in getting out of the maze. I made a long excursion on ahead to see if there might not be a way of slipping through and over on the consecutive flat sheets as we had done before; but the ice appeared to be broken up, and so it probably is all the way to land. It was no longer with the compact, massive polar ice that we had to deal, but with thin, broken-up pack-ice, at the mercy of every wind of heaven, and we had to reconcile ourselves to the idea of scrambling from floe to floe as best we might. What would I not have given at this moment for it to be March, with all its cold and sufferings, instead of the end of May, and the thermometer almost above 32° Fahr.? It was just this end of May I had feared all along, the time at which I considered it of the greatest importance to have gained land. Unhappily my fears proved to be well founded. I almost began to wish that it was a month or more later; the ice would then perhaps be slacker here, with more open pools and lanes, so that in a measure one could make one's way in a kayak. Well, who could tell? This miserable thin young ice appeared to be utterly treacherous, and there was a water-sky in every direction, but mostly far, far ahead. If only we were there! if only we were under land! Perhaps, if the worst should come to the worst, we may be reduced to waiting till over the time when the mild weather and break-up of the ice come in earnest. But have we provisions enough to wait till that time? This was, indeed, more than doubtful.... As I stood sunk in these gloomy reflections on the high hummock, and looking southward over the ice, seeing ridge after ridge and lane after lane before me, I suddenly heard the well-known sound of a whale blowing from a lead close behind. It was the solution of my troubles. Starve we should not; there are animals here, and we have guns, thank Heaven, and harpoons as well, and we know how to use them. There was a whole school of narwhals in the lane breathing and blowing ceaselessly. As some high ice hid them from view for a great part, I could only see their gray backs, now and then, as they arched themselves over the black surface of the water. I stood a long while looking at them, and had I had my gun and harpoon, it would have been an easy matter to get one. After all, the prospect was not so bad at present; and meanwhile what we had to do was not to mind lanes, but to keep on our course S.W. or S.W. to S. over them, and push on the best we could. And with that resolution I returned to the sledges. Neither of us, however, had a very firm belief that we should get much farther, and therefore all the more elated did we become as our advance proved by degrees to be tolerably easy, in spite of our exhausted dogs.

"While we were making our way during the morning between some lanes I suddenly saw a black object come rushing through the air; it was a black guillemot (Uria grylle), and it circled round us several times. Not long afterwards I heard a curious noise in a southwesterly direction--something like the sound made by a goat's horn when blown on; I heard it many times, and Johansen also remarked it, but I could not make out what it was. An animal, at all events, it must be, as human beings are hardly likely to be near us here. [25] A little while later a fulmar came sailing towards us, and flew round and round just over our heads. I got out my gun, but before I had a cartridge in the bird had gone again. It is beginning to grow lively here; it is cheering to see so much life, and gives one the feeling that one is approaching land and kindlier regions. Later on I saw a seal on the ice; it was a little ringed seal, which it would have been a satisfaction to capture; but before I had quite made out which it was it had disappeared into the water.

"At 10 o'clock we had dinner, which we shall no longer eat in the bag, in order to save time. We have also decided to shorten our marches to eight hours or so in the day on account of the dogs. At 11 o'clock, after dinner, we started off again, and at three stopped and camped. I should imagine we went 7 miles yesterday, or let me say between 12 and 15 during the last two days, the direction being about southwest--every little counts.

"In front of us on the horizon we have a water-sky, or at any rate a reflection which is so sharply defined and remains so immovable that it must either be over open water or dark land; our course just bears on it. It is a good way off, and the water it is over can hardly be of small extent; I cannot help thinking that it must be under land. May it be so! But between us, to judge by the sky, there seem to be plenty of lanes.

"The ice is still the same nowadays, barely of the previous winter's formation, where it is impossible to find any suitable for cooking. It seems to me that it is here, if possible, thinner than ever, with a thickness of from 2 to 3 feet. The reason of this I am still at a loss to explain.

"Friday, May 31st. It is wonderful; the last day of May--this month gone too without our reaching land, without even seeing it. June cannot surely pass in the same manner--it is impossible that we can have far to go now. I think everything seems to indicate this. The ice becomes thinner and thinner, we see more and more life around us, and in front is the same reflection of water or land, whichever it may be. Yesterday I saw two ringed seals (Phoca foetida) in two small lanes; a bird, probably a fulmar, flew over a lane here yesterday evening, and at midday yesterday we came on the fresh tracks of a bear and two small cubs, which had followed the side of a lane. There seemed to be prospects of fresh food in such surroundings, though, curiously enough, neither of us has any particular craving for it; we are quite satisfied with the food we have; but for the dogs it would be of great importance. We had to kill again last night; this time it was 'Pan,' our best dog. It could not be helped; he was quite worn out, and could not do much more. The seven dogs we have left can now live three days on the food he provided.

"This is quite unexpected: the ice is very much broken up here--mere pack-ice, were it not for some large floes or flat spaces in between. If this ice had time to slacken it would be easy enough to row between the floes. Sometimes when we were stopped by lanes yesterday, and I went up on to some high hummock to look ahead, my heart sank within me, and I thought we should be constrained to give up the hope of getting farther; it was looking out over a very chaos of lumps of ice and brash mixed together in open water. To jump from piece to piece in such waters, with dogs and two heavy sledges following one, is not exactly easy; but by means of investigation and experiment we managed eventually to get over this lane too, and after going through rubble for a while came on to flat ice again; and thus it kept on with new lanes repeatedly.

"The ice we are now travelling over is almost entirely new ice with occasional older floes in between. It continues to grow thinner, here it is for the greater part not more than 3 feet in thickness, and the floes are as flat as when they were frozen. Yesterday evening, however, we got on to a stretch of old ice, on which we are stationed now, but how far it extends it is difficult to say. We camped yesterday at half-past six in the evening and found fresh ice again for the cooker, which was distinctly a pleasant change for the cook. We have not had it since May 25th. [26] A disagreeable wind from the south, it is true, has sprung up this evening, and it will be hard work going against it. We have a great deal of bad weather here; it is overcast nearly every day, with wind--south wind, which, above everything, is least desirable just now. But what are we to do? To settle down we have hardly provender enough; there is nothing for it, I suppose, but to grind on.

"Took a meridian altitude to-day, and we should be in 82° 21' N., and still no glimpse of land; this is becoming more and more of an enigma. What would I not give to set my foot on dry land now? But patience--always patience."