“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 fœtida) 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.[14] 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.”
[1] We always kept a supply of our various provisions in small bags inside the kayaks, so that we could get out whatever we wanted for our daily consumption without undoing the big sacks, which were sewed up or securely fastened in other ways.
[2] When I left the ship I had purposed to travel northward for 50 days, for which time we had taken provender for the dogs.