a voyage round Cape Horn to San Francisco.  What was the object of taking all these dogs on board and transporting them all that long way?  And if it came to that, would any of them survive the voyage round the formidable promontory?  Besides, were there not dogs enough, and good dogs too, in Alaska?  Why was the whole after-deck full of coal?  What was the use of all these planks and boards?  Would it not have been much more convenient to take all that kind of goods on board in ’Frisco?  These and many similar questions began to pass from man to man; indeed, their very faces began to resemble notes of interrogation.  Not that anyone asked me —­ far from it; it was the second in command who had to bear the brunt and answer as well as he could —­ an extremely thankless and unpleasant task for a man who already had his hands more than full.

In order to relieve his difficult situation, I resolved, shortly before leaving Christiansand, to inform Lieutenants Prestrud and Gjertsen of the true state of affairs.  After having signed an undertaking of secrecy, they received full information of the intended dash to the South Pole, and an explanation of the reasons for keeping the whole thing secret.  When asked whether they wished to take part in the new plan, they both answered at once in the affirmative, and that settled it.

There were now three men on board —­ all the officers —­ who were acquainted with the situation, and were thus in a position to parry troublesome questions and remove possible anxieties on the part of the uninitiated.

Two of the members of the expedition joined during the stay at Christiansand —­ Hassel and Lindstrom —­ and one change was made:  the engineer Eliassen was discharged.  It was no easy matter to find a man who possessed the qualifications for taking over the post of engineer to the Fram.  Few, or perhaps no one, in Norway could be expected to have much knowledge of motors of the size of ours.  The only thing to be done was to go to the place where the engine was built —­ to Sweden.  Diesel’s firm in Stockholm helped us out of the difficulty; they sent us the man, and it afterwards turned out that he was the right man.  Knut Sundbeck was his name.  A chapter might be written on the good work that man did, and the quiet, unostentatious way in which he did it.  From the very beginning he had assisted in the construction of the Fram’s motor, so that he knew his engine thoroughly.  He treated it as his darling; therefore there was never anything the matter with it.  It may truly be said that he did honour to his firm and the nation to which he belongs.

Meanwhile we were hard at work, getting ready to sail.  We decided to leave before the middle of August —­ the sooner the better.

The Fram had been in dry dock, where the hull was thoroughly coated with composition.  Heavily laden as the ship was, the false keel was a good deal injured by the severe pressure on the blocks, but with the help of a diver the damage was quickly made good.