Farthest North Volume II Part 4

Sledge No. 1 (with Nansen's Kayak)

Lbs. Oz. Kilos.

Kayak 41 2 18.7 Pump (for pumping kayaks in case of leakage) 1 2 0.5 Sail 1 9 0.7 Axe and geological hammer 1 5 0.6 Gun and case 7 4 3.3 Two small wooden rods belonging to cooker 0 14 0.4 Theodolite and case 4 13 2.2 Three reserve cross-pieces for sledges 0 0.9 Some pieces of wood 0 11 0.3 Harpoon line 0 8.4 0.24 Fur gaiters 1 3 0.55 Five b.a.l.l.s of cord 2 9 1.17 Cooker, with two mugs, ladle, and two spoons 8 13 4.0 Petroleum lamp (Primus) 0 4 1/2 0.1 Pocket-flask 0 6 0.17 Bag, with sundry articles of clothing 8 13 4.0 Blanket 4 6 2.0 Jersey 2 8 1.15 Finn shoes filled with gra.s.s 3 1 1.4 Cap for fitting over opening in kayak 0 7 0.2 One pair "komager" 2 1 0.95 Two pair kayak gloves and one harpoon and line 1 5 0.6 One waterproof sealskin kayak overcoat 3 1 1.4 Tool-bag 2 10 1.2 Bag of sewing materials, including sailmaker's palm, sail needles, and other sundries 2 10 1.2 Three Norwegian flags 0 4 0.1 Medicines, etc. 4 15 2.25 Photographic camera 4 10 2.1 One ca.s.sette and one tin box of films 3 14 1.75 One wooden cup 0 3 0.08 One rope (for lashing kayak to sledge) 2 0 0.9 Pieces of reindeer-skin to prevent kayaks from chafing 3 15 1.8 Wooden shovel 2 3 1.0 Ski-staff with disk at bottom 1 9 0.7 One bamboo staff 1 0 0.45 Two oak staffs 2 10 1.2 Seven reserve dog harnesses and two reserve hauling ropes 2 10 1.2 One coil of rope 0 6 0.18 Four bamboo poles for masts and for steering sledges 8 13 4.0 One bag of bread 5 15 2.7 ,, ,, whey-powder 3 5 1.5 ,, ,, sugar 2 3 1.0 ,, ,, alb.u.minous flour 1 12 0.8 ,, ,, lime-juice tablets 1 10 0.73 ,, ,, Frame-food stamina tablets 2 7 1.1

As boat's grips, under the sledges, were:

Three sacks of pemmican (together) 238 1 108.2 One sack "leverpostei," or pate made of calf's liver 93 15 42.7

Sledge No. 2. On this were carried, in strong sacks:

Lbs. Oz. Kilos.

Alb.u.minous flour 14 15 6.8 Wheat flour 15 6 7.0 Whey-powder 16 15 7.7 Corn flour 8 13 4.0 Sugar 7 1 3.2 Vril-food 31 4 14.2 Australian pemmican 13 0 5.9 Chocolate 12 12 5.8 Oatmeal 11 0 5.0 Dried red whortleberries 0 14 0.4 Two sacks of white bread (together) 69 5 31.5 One sack of aleuronate bread 46 10 21.2 "Special food" (a mixture of pea flour, meat-powder, fat, etc.) 63 13 29.0 b.u.t.ter 85 13 39.0 Fish flour (Vge's) 34 2 15.5 Dried potatoes 15 3 6.9 One reindeer-skin sleeping-bag 19 13 9.0 Two steel-wire ropes, with couples for twenty-eight dogs 11 0 5.0 One pair hickory snow-shoes 11 0 5.0 Weight of sledge 43 5 19.7

Sledge No. 3 (with Johansen's Kayak)

Lbs. Oz. Kilos.

Kayak 41 6 18.8 Two pieces of reindeer-skin, to prevent chafing 1 12 0.8 A supply of dog-shoes 1 3 0.55 One Eskimo shooting-sledge with sail (intended for possible seal-shooting on the ice) 1 10 0.73 Two sledge sails 2 10 1.2 Pump 0 14 0.4 Oar-blades (made of canvas stretched on frames, and intended to be lashed to the ski-staffs) 1 2 0.5 Gun 7 2.7 3.26 Flask 0 5.9 0.17 Net (for catching crustacea in the sea) 0 5.2 0.15 One pair "komager" 1 15.7 0.9 Waterproof kayak overcoat of sealskin 2 3 1.0 Fur gaiters 0 7.3 0.21 Two reserve pieces of wood 0 9.8 0.28 Two tins of petroleum (about 5 gallons) 40 0.6 18.2 Several reserve snow-shoe fastenings 0 15.1 0.43 Lantern for changing plates, etc. 1 1.2 0.49 Artificial gla.s.s horizon 0 10.2 0.29 Bag with cords and nautical almanac 0 4.6 0.13 Pocket s.e.xtant 0 13.7 0.39 Two packets of matches 0 13.7 0.39 One reserve sheet of German silver (for repaving plates under sledge-runners) 0 7.4 0.21 Pitch 0 3.5 0.1 Two minimum thermometers in cases 0 7.4 0.21 Three quicksilver thermometers in cases 0 4.9 0.14 One compa.s.s 0 8.8 0.25 One aluminium compa.s.s 0 8.4 0.24 ,, ,, telescope 1 8.6 0.7 "Sennegraes" or sedge for Finn shoes 0 7 0.2 Bag with cartridges 26 1 11.85 Leather pouch with reserve shooting requisites, parts for gun-locks, reserve c.o.c.ks, b.a.l.l.s, powder, etc. 3 1 1.4 Leather pouch with gla.s.s bottle, one spoon, and five pencils 0 10.6 0.3 Bag with navigation tables, nautical almanac, cards, etc. 2 7 1.1 Tin box with diaries, letters, photographs, observation-journals, etc. 3 10 1.65 One cap for covering hole in deck of kayak 0 8 0.23 One sack of meat-chocolate 17 10 8.0 One bag of soups 6 10 3.0 ,, ,, cocoa 7 6 3.35 ,, ,, fish flour 3 12 1.70 ,, ,, wheat flour 2 0 0.90 ,, ,, chocolate 4 6 2.0 ,, ,, oatmeal 4 6 2.0 ,, ,, vril-food 4 6 2.0

As grips under the sledge were:

One sack of oatmeal 29 1 13.2 ,, ,, pemmican 115 1 52.3 ,, ,, liver pate 111 12 50.8

A list of our dogs and their weights on starting may be of interest:

Lbs. Kilos.

Kvik 78 35.7 Freia 50 22.7 Barbara 49 1/2 22.5 Suggen 61 1/2 28.0 Flint 59 1/2 27.0 Barrabas 61 1/2 28.0 Gulen 60 1/2 27.5 Haren 61 1/2 28.0 Barnet 39 17.7 Sultan 68 31.0 Klapperslangen 59 1/2 27.0 Blok 59 26.8 Bjelki 38 17.3 Sjoliget 40 18.0 Katta 45 1/2 20.7 Narrifas 46 21.0 Livjaegeren 38 1/2 17.5 Potifar 57 26.0 Storraeven 70 31.8 Isbjon 61 1/2 28.0 Lilleraeven 59 26.7 Kvindfolket 37 26.0 Perpetuum 63 28.6 Baro 60 1/2 27.5 Russen 58 26.5 Kaifas 69 31.5 Ulenka 57 26.0 Pan 65 29.5

CHAPTER IV

WE SAY GOOD-BYE TO THE "FRAM"

At last by midday on March 14th we finally left the Fram to the noise of a thundering salute. For the third time farewells and mutual good wishes were exchanged. Some of our comrades came a little way with us, but Sverdrup soon turned back in order to be on board for dinner at 1 o'clock. It was on the top of a hummock that we two said good-bye to each other; the Fram was lying behind us, and I can remember how I stood watching him as he strode easily homeward on his snow-shoes. I half wished I could turn back with him and find myself again in the warm saloon; I knew only too well that a life of toil lay before us, and that it would be many a long day before we should again sleep and eat under a comfortable roof; but that that time was going to be so long as it really proved to be, none of us then had any idea. We all thought that either the expedition would succeed, and that we should return home that same year, or--that it would not succeed.

A little while after Sverdrup had left us, Mogstad also found it necessary to turn back. He had thought of going with us till the next day, but his heavy wolfskin trousers were, as he un-euphemistically expressed it, "almost full of sweat, and he must go back to the fire on board to get dry." Hansen, Henriksen, and Pettersen were then the only ones left, and they labored along, each with his load on his back. It was difficult for them to keep up with us on the flat ice, so quickly did we go; but when we came to pressure-ridges we were brought to a standstill and the sledges had to be helped over. At one place the ridge was so bad that we had to carry the sledges a long way. When, after considerable trouble, we had managed to get over it, Peter shook his head reflectively, and said to Johansen that we should meet plenty more of the same kind, and have enough hard work before we had eaten sufficient of the loads to make the sledges run lightly. Just here we came upon a long stretch of bad ice, and Peter became more and more concerned for our future; but towards evening matters improved, and we advanced more rapidly. When we stopped at 6 o'clock the odometer registered a good 7 miles, which was not so bad for a first day's work. We had a cheerful evening in our tent, which was just about big enough to hold all five. Pettersen, who had exerted himself and become over-heated on the way, shivered and groaned while the dogs were being tied up and fed, and the tent pitched. He, however, found existence considerably brighter when he sat inside it, in his warm wolfskin clothes, with a pot of smoking chocolate before him, a big lump of b.u.t.ter in one hand and a biscuit in the other, and exclaimed, "Now I am living like a prince!" He thereafter discoursed at length on the exalting thought that he was sitting in a tent in the middle of the Polar Sea. Poor fellow, he had begged and prayed to be allowed to come with us on this expedition; he would cook for us and make himself generally useful, both as a tinsmith and blacksmith; and then, he said, three would be company. I regretted that I could not take more than one companion, and he had been in the depths of woe for several days, but now found comfort in the fact that he had, at any rate, come part of the way with us, and was out on this great desert sea, for, as he said, "not many people have done that."

The others had no sleeping-bag with them, so they made themselves a cozy little hut of snow, into which they crawled in their wolfskin garments, and had a tolerably good night. I was awake early the next morning; but when I crept out of the tent I found that somebody else was on his legs before me, and this was Pettersen, who, awakened by the cold, was now walking up and down to warm his stiffened limbs. He had tried it now, he said; he never should have thought it possible to sleep in the snow, but it had not been half bad. He would not quite admit that he had been cold, and that that was the reason why he had turned out so early. Then we had our last pleasant breakfast together, got the sledges ready, harnessed the dogs, shook hands with our companions, and, without many words being uttered on either side, started out into solitude. Peter shook his head sorrowfully as we went off. I turned round when we had gone some little way, and saw his figure on the top of the hummock; he was still looking after us. His thoughts were probably sad; perhaps he believed that he had spoken to us for the last time.

We found large expanses of flat ice, and covered the ground quickly, farther and farther away from our comrades, into the unknown, where we two alone and the dogs were to wander for months. The Fram's rigging had disappeared long ago behind the margin of the ice. We often came on piled-up ridges and uneven ice, where the sledges had to be helped and sometimes carried over. It often happened, too, that they capsized altogether, and it was only by dint of strenuous hauling that we righted them again. Somewhat exhausted by all this hard work, we stopped finally at 6 o'clock in the evening, and had then gone about 9 miles during the day. They were not quite the marches I had reckoned on, but we hoped that by degrees the sledges would become lighter and the ice better to travel over. The latter, too, seems to have been the case at first. On Sunday, March 17th, I say in my diary: "The ice appears to be more even the farther north we get; came across a lane, however, yesterday which necessitated a long detour. [10] At half-past six we had done about 9 miles. As we had just reached a good camping-ground, and the dogs were tired, we stopped. Lowest temperature last night, -45 Fahr. (-42.8 C.)."

The ice continued to become more even during the following days, and our marches often amounted to 14 miles or more in the day. Now and then a misfortune might happen which detained us, as, for instance, one day a sharp spike of ice which was standing up cut a hole in a sack of fish flour, and all the delicious food ran out. It took us more than an hour to collect it all again and repair the damages. Then the odometer got broken through being jammed in some uneven ice, and it took some hours to mend it by a process of lashing. But on we went northward, often over great, wide ice-plains which seemed as if they must stretch right to the Pole. Sometimes it happened that we pa.s.sed through places where the ice was "unusually ma.s.sive, with high hummocks, so that it looked like undulating country covered with snow." This was undoubtedly very old ice, which had drifted in the Polar Sea for a long time on its way from the Siberian Sea to the east coast of Greenland, and which had been subjected year after year to severe pressure. High hummocks and mounds are thus formed, which summer after summer are partially melted by the rays of the sun, and again in the winters covered with great drifts of snow, so that they a.s.sume forms which resemble ice-hills rather than piles of sea-ice resulting from upheaval.

Wednesday, March 20th, my diary says: "Beautiful weather for travelling in, with fine sunsets; but somewhat cold, particularly in the bag, at nights (it was -41.8 and -43.6 Fahr., or -41 and -42 C.). The ice appears to be getting more even the farther we advance, and in some places it is like travelling over 'inland ice.' If this goes on the whole thing will be done in no time." That day we lost our odometer, and as we did not find it out till some time afterwards, and I did not know how far we might have to go back, I thought it was not worth while to return and look for. It was the cause, however, of our only being able subsequently to guess approximately at the distance we had gone during the day. We had another mishap, too, that day. This was that one of the dogs (it was "Livjaegeren") had become so ill that he could not be driven any longer, and we had to let him go loose. It was late in the day before we discovered that he was not with us; he had stopped behind at our camping-ground when we broke up in the morning, and I had to go back after him on snow-shoes, which caused a long delay.

"Thursday, March 21st. Nine in the morning, -43.6 Fahr., or -42 C. (Minimum in the night, -47.2 Fahr., or -44 C.) Clear, as it has been every day. Beautiful, bright weather; glorious for travelling in, but somewhat cold at nights, with the quicksilver continually frozen. Patching Finn shoes in this temperature inside the tent, with one's nose slowly freezing away, is not all pure enjoyment.

"Friday, March 22d. Splendid ice for getting over; things go better and better. Wide expanses, with a few pressure-ridges now and then, but pa.s.sable everywhere. Kept at it yesterday from about half-past eleven in the morning to half-past eight at night; did a good 21 miles, I hope. We should be in lat.i.tude 85. The only disagreeable thing about it now is the cold. Our clothes are transformed more and more into a cuira.s.s of ice during the day, and wet bandages at night. The blankets likewise. The sleeping-bag gets heavier and heavier from the moisture which freezes on the hair inside. The same clear, settled weather every day. We are both longing now for a change; a few clouds and a little more mildness would be welcome." The temperature in the night, -44.8 Fahr. (-42.7 C.). By an observation which I took later in the forenoon, our lat.i.tude that day proved to be 85 9' N.

"Sat.u.r.day, March 23d. On account of observation, lashing the loads on the sledges, patching bags, and other occupations of a like kind, which are no joke in this low temperature, we did not manage to get off yesterday before 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We stuck to it till nine in the evening, when we stopped in some of the worst ice we have seen lately. Our day's march, however, had lain across several large tracts of level ice, so I think that we made 14 miles or so all the same. We have the same brilliant sunshine; but yesterday afternoon the wind from the northeast, which we have had for the last few days, increased, and made it rather raw.

"We pa.s.sed over a large frozen pool yesterday evening; it looked almost like a large lake." It could not have been long since this was formed, as the ice on it was still quite thin. It is wonderful that these pools can form up there at that time of the year.

From this time forward there was an end of the flat ice, which it had been simple enjoyment to travel over; and now we had often great difficulties to cope with. On Sunday, March 24th, I write: "Ice not so good; yesterday was a hard day, but we made a few miles--not more, though, than seven, I am afraid. This continual lifting of the heavily loaded sledges is calculated to break one's back; but better times are coming, perhaps. The cold is also appreciable, always the same; but yesterday it was increased by the admixture of considerable wind from the northeast. We halted about half-past nine in the evening. It is perceptible how the days lengthen, and how much later the sun sets; in a few days' time we shall have the midnight sun.

"We killed 'Livjaegeren' yesterday evening, and hard work it was skinning him." This was the first dog which had to be killed; but many came afterwards, and it was some of the most disagreeable work we had on the journey, particularly now at the beginning, when it was so cold. When this first dog was dismembered and given to the others, many of them went supperless the whole night in preference to touching the meat. But as the days went by and they became more worn out, they learned to appreciate dog's flesh, and later we were not even so considerate as to skin the butchered animal, but served it hair and all.

The following day the ice was occasionally somewhat better; but as a rule it was bad, and we became more and more worn out with the never-ending work of helping the dogs, righting the sledges every time they capsized, and hauling them, or carrying them bodily, over hummocks and inequalities of the ground. Sometimes we were so sleepy in the evenings that our eyes shut and we fell asleep as we went along. My head would drop, and I would be awakened by suddenly falling forward on my snow-shoes. Then we would stop, after having found a camping-ground behind a hummock or ridge of ice, where there was some shelter from the wind. While Johansen looked after the dogs, it generally fell to my lot to pitch the tent, fill the cooker with ice, light the burner, and start the supper as quickly as possible. This generally consisted of "lobscouse" one day, made of pemmican and dried potatoes; another day of a sort of fish rissole substance known as "fiskegratin" in Norway, and in this case composed of fish-meal, flour, and b.u.t.ter. A third day it would be pea, bean, or lentil soup, with bread and pemmican. Johansen preferred the "lobscouse," while I had a weakness for the "fiskegratin." As time went by, however, he came over to my way of thinking, and the "fiskegratin" took precedence of everything else.

As soon as Johansen had finished with the dogs, and the different receptacles containing the ingredients and eatables for breakfast and supper had been brought in, as well as our bags with private necessities, the sleeping-bags were spread out, the tent door carefully shut, and we crept into the bag to thaw our clothes. This was not very agreeable work. During the course of the day the damp exhalations of the body had little by little become condensed in our outer garments, which were now a ma.s.s of ice and transformed into complete suits of ice-armor. They were so hard and stiff that if we had only been able to get them off they could have stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly every time we moved. These clothes were so stiff that the arm of my coat actually rubbed deep sores in my wrists during our marches; one of these sores--the one on the right hand--got frost-bitten, the wound grew deeper and deeper, and nearly reached the bone. I tried to protect it with bandages, but not until late in the summer did it heal, and I shall probably have the scar for life. When we got into our sleeping-bags in the evening our clothes began to thaw slowly, and on this process a considerable amount of physical heat was expended. We packed ourselves tight into the bag, and lay with our teeth chattering for an hour, or an hour and a half, before we became aware of a little of the warmth in our bodies which we so sorely needed. At last our clothes became wet and pliant, only to freeze again a few minutes after we had turned out of the bag in the morning. There was no question of getting these clothes dried on the journey so long as the cold lasted, as more and more moisture from the body collected in them.

How cold we were as we lay there shivering in the bag, waiting for the supper to be ready! I, who was cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake to see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded. At last the supper was ready, was portioned out, and, as always, tasted delicious. These occasions were the supreme moments of our existence--moments to which we looked forward the whole day long. But sometimes we were so weary that our eyes closed, and we fell asleep with the food on its way to our mouths. Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons in them and the food fly out on the bag. After supper we generally permitted ourselves the luxury of a little extra drink, consisting of water, as hot as we could swallow it, in which whey-powder had been dissolved. It tasted something like boiled milk, and we thought it wonderfully comforting; it seemed to warm us to the very ends of our toes. Then we would creep down into the bag again, buckle the flap carefully over our heads, lie close together, and soon sleep the sleep of the just. But even in our dreams we went on ceaselessly, grinding at the sledges and driving the dogs, always northward, and I was often awakened by hearing Johansen calling in his sleep to "Pan," or "Barrabas," or "Klapperslangen": "Get on, you devil, you! Go on, you brutes! Sa.s.s, sa.s.s! [11] Now the whole thing is going over!" and execrations less fit for reproduction, until I went to sleep again.

In the morning I, as cook, was obliged to turn out to prepare the breakfast, which took an hour's time. As a rule, it consisted one morning of chocolate, bread, b.u.t.ter, and pemmican; another of oatmeal porridge, or a compound of flour, water, and b.u.t.ter, in imitation of our "b.u.t.ter-porridge" at home. This was washed down with milk, made of whey-powder and water. The breakfast ready, Johansen was roused; we sat up in the sleeping-bag, one of the blankets was spread out as a table-cloth, and we fell to work. We had a comfortable breakfast, wrote up our diaries, and then had to think about starting. But how tired we sometimes were, and how often would I not have given anything to be able to creep to the bottom of the bag again and sleep the clock round. It seemed to me as if this must be the greatest pleasure in life, but our business was to fight our way northward--always northward. We performed our toilets, and then came the going out into the cold to get the sledges ready, disentangle the dogs' traces, harness the animals, and get off as quickly as possible. I went first to find the way through the uneven ice, then came the sledge with my kayak. The dogs soon learned to follow, but at every unevenness of the ground they stopped, and if one could not get them all to start again at the same time by a shout, and so pull the sledge over the difficulty, one had to go back to beat or help them, according as circ.u.mstances necessitated. Then came Johansen with the two other sledges, always shouting to the dogs to pull harder, always beating them, and himself hauling to get the sledges over the terrible ridges of ice. It was undeniable cruelty to the poor animals from first to last, and one must often look back on it with horror. It makes me shudder even now when I think of how we beat them mercilessly with thick ash sticks when, hardly able to move, they stopped from sheer exhaustion. It made one's heart bleed to see them, but we turned our eyes away and hardened ourselves. It was necessary; forward we must go, and to this end everything else must give place. It is the sad part of expeditions of this kind that one systematically kills all better feelings, until only hard-hearted egoism remains. When I think of all those splendid animals, toiling for us without a murmur, as long as they could strain a muscle, never getting any thanks or even so much as a kind word, daily writhing under the lash until the time came when they could do no more and death freed them from their pangs--when I think of how they were left behind, one by one, up there on those desolate ice-fields, which had been witness to their faithfulness and devotion, I have moments of bitter self-reproach. It took us two alone such a long time to pitch the tent, feed the dogs, cook, etc., in the evening, and then break up again and get ready in the morning, that the days never seemed long enough if we were to do proper day's marches, and, besides, get the sleep we required at night. But when the nights became so light, it was not so necessary to keep regular hours any longer, and we started when we pleased, whether it was night or day. We stopped, too, when it suited us, and took the sleep which might be necessary for ourselves and the dogs. I tried to make it a rule that our marches were to be of nine or ten hours' duration. In the middle of the day we generally had a rest and something to eat--as a rule, bread-and-b.u.t.ter, with a little pemmican or liver pate. These dinners were a bitter trial. We used to try and find a good sheltered place, and sometimes even rolled ourselves up in our blankets, but all the same the wind cut right through us as we sat on the sledges eating our meal. Sometimes, again, we spread the sleeping-bag out on the ice, took our food with us, and crept well in, but even then did not succeed in thawing either it or our clothes. When this was too much for us we walked up and down to keep ourselves warm, and ate our food as we walked. Then came the no less bitter task of disentangling the dogs' traces, and we were glad when we could get off again. In the afternoon, as a rule, we each had a piece of meat-chocolate.

Most Arctic travellers who have gone sledge journeys have complained of the so-called Arctic thirst, and it has been considered an almost unavoidable evil in connection with a long journey across wastes of snow. It is often increased, too, by the eating of snow. I had prepared myself for this thirst, from which we had also suffered severely when crossing Greenland, and had taken with me a couple of india-rubber flasks, which we filled with water every morning from the cooker, and which by carrying in the breast could be protected from the cold. To my great astonishment, however, I soon discovered that the whole day would often pa.s.s by without my as much as tasting the water in my flask. As time went by, the less need did I feel to drink during the day, and at last I gave up taking water with me altogether. If a pa.s.sing feeling of thirst made itself felt, a piece of fresh ice, of which, as a rule, there was always some to be found, was sufficient to dispel it. [12]

The reason why we were spared this suffering, which has been one of the greatest hardships of many sledge expeditions, must be attributed in a great measure to our admirable cooking apparatus. By the help of this we were able, with the consumption of a minimum of fuel, to melt and boil so much water every morning that we could drink all we wished. There was even some left over, as a rule, which had to be thrown away. The same thing was generally the case in the evening.

"Friday, March 29th. We are grinding on, but very slowly. The ice is only tolerable, and not what I expected from the beginning. There are often great ridges of piled-up ice of dismal aspect, which take up a great deal of time, as one must go on ahead to find a way, and, as a rule, make a greater or less detour to get over them. In addition, the dogs are growing rather slow and slack, and it is almost impossible to get them on. And then this endless disentangling of the hauling-ropes, with their infernal twists and knots, which get worse and worse to undo! The dogs jump over and in between one another incessantly, and no sooner has one carefully cleared the hauling-ropes than they are twisted into a veritable skein again. Then one of the sledges is stopped by a block of ice. The dogs howl impatiently to follow their companions in front; then one bites through a trace and starts off on his own account, perhaps followed by one or two others, and these must be caught and the traces knotted; there is no time to splice them properly, nor would it be a very congenial task in this cold. So we go on when the ice is uneven, and every hour and a half, at least, have to stop and disentangle the traces.

"We started yesterday about half-past eight in the morning, and stopped about five in the afternoon. After dinner the northeasterly wind, which we have had the whole time, suddenly became stronger, and the sky overcast. We welcomed it with joy, for we saw in it the sign of a probable change of weather and an end to this perpetual cold and brightness. I do not think we deceived ourselves either. Yesterday evening the temperature had risen to -29.2 Fahr. (-34 C.), and we had the best night in the bag we have had for a long time. Just now, as I am getting the breakfast ready, I see that it is clear again, and the sun is shining through the tent wall.

"The ice we are now travelling over seems, on the whole, to be old; but sometimes we come across tracts, of considerable width, of uneven new ice, which must have been pressed up a considerable time. I cannot account for it in any other way than by supposing it to be ice from great open pools which must have formed here at one time. We have traversed pools of this description, with level ice on them, several times." That day I took a meridian observation, which, however, did not make us farther north than 85 30'. I could not understand this; thought that we must be in lat.i.tude 86, and, therefore, supposed there must be something wrong with the observation.

"Sat.u.r.day, March 30th. Yesterday was Tycho Brahe's day. At first we found much uneven ice, and had to strike a devious route to get through it, so that our day's march did not amount to much, although we kept at it a long time. At the end of it, however, and after considerable toil, we found ourselves on splendid flat ice, more level than it had been for a long time. At last, then, we had come on some more of the good old kind, and could not complain of some rubble and snow-drifts here and there; but then we were stopped by some ugly pressure-ridges of the worst kind, formed by the packing of enormous blocks. The last ridge was the worst of all, and before it yawned a crack in the thick ice about 12 feet deep. When the first sledge was going over all the dogs fell in and had to be hauled up again. One of them--'Klapperslangen'--slipped his harness and ran away. As the next sledge was going over it fell in bodily, but happily was not smashed to atoms, as it might have been. We had to unload it entirely in order to get it up again, and then reload, all of which took up a great deal of time. Then, too, the dogs had to be thrown down and dragged up on the other side. With the third sledge we managed better, and after we had gone a little way farther the runaway dog came back. At last we reached a camping-ground, pitched our tent, and found that the thermometer showed -45.4 Fahr. (-43 C.). Disentangling dog-traces in this temperature with one's bare, frost-bitten, almost skinless hands is desperate work. But finally we were in our dear bag, with the 'Primus' singing cozily, when, to crown our misfortunes, I discovered that it would not burn. I examined it everywhere, but could find nothing wrong. Johansen had to turn out and go and fetch the tools and a reserve burner while I studied the cooker. At last I discovered that some ice had got in under the lid, and this had caused a leakage. Finally we got it to light, and at 5 o'clock in the morning the pea-soup was ready, and very good it was. At three in the afternoon I was up again cooking. Thank Heaven, it is warm and comfortable in the bag, or this sort of life would be intolerable!

"Sunday, March 31st. Yesterday, at last, came the long-wished-for change of weather, with southerly wind and rising temperature. Early this morning the thermometer showed -22 Fahr. (-30 C.), regular summer weather, in fact. It was, therefore, with lightened hearts that we set off over good ice and with the wind at our backs. On we went at a very fair pace, and everything was going well, when a lane suddenly opened just in front of the first sledge. We managed to get this over by the skin of our teeth; but just as we were going to cross the lane again after the other sledges, a large piece of ice broke under Johansen, and he fell in, wetting both legs--a deplorable incident. While the lane was gradually opening more and more, I went up and down it to find a way over, but without success. Here we were, with one man and a sledge on one side, two sledges and a wet man on the other, with an ever-widening lane between. The kayaks could not be launched, as, through the frequent capsizing of the sledges, they had got holes in them, and for the time being were useless. This was a cheerful prospect for the night, I on one side with the tent, Johansen, probably frozen stiff, on the other. At last, after a long detour, I found a way over; and the sledges were conveyed across. It was out of the question, however, to attempt to go on, as Johansen's nether extremities were a ma.s.s of ice and his overalls so torn that extensive repairs were necessary."

CHAPTER V

A HARD STRUGGLE