The moisture is beginning to be rather troublesome now; most of our wardrobe is wet through, and the sleeping-bags will soon meet with the same fate.  The snow-drift outside is now so high that it shuts out most of the daylight; we are in twilight.  To-morrow we shall be obliged to dig out the tent, whatever the weather is like, otherwise we shall be buried entirely, and run the additional risk of having the tent split by the weight of snow.  I am afraid it will be a day’s work to dig out the tent and the two sledges; we have only one little shovel to do it with.

A slight rise of both barometer and thermometer tells us that at last we are on the eve of the change we have been longing for.  Stubberud is certain of fair weather to-morrow, he says.  I am by no means so sure, and offer to bet pretty heavily that there will be no change.  Two inches of Norwegian plug tobacco is the stake, and with a heartfelt desire that Jorgen may win I await the morrow.

Thursday, December 7. —­ Early this morning I owned to having lost my bet, as the weather, so far as I could tell, was no longer of the same tempestuous character; but Stubberud thought the contrary.  “It seems to me just as bad,” said he.  He was right enough, as a matter of fact, but this did not prevent my persuading him to accept payment.  Meanwhile we were obliged to make an attempt to dig out the tent, regardless of the weather; the situation was no longer endurable.  We waited all the forenoon in the hope of an improvement; but as none came, we set to work at twelve o’clock.  Our implements showed some originality and diversity:  a little spade, a biscuit-tin, and a cooker.  The drift did its best to undo our work as fast as we dug, but we managed to hold our own against it.  Digging out the tent-pegs gave most trouble.  After six hours’ hard work we got the tent set up a few yards to windward of its first position; the place where it had stood was now a well about seven feet deep.  Unfortunately there was no chance of immortalizing this scene of excavation.  It would have been amusing enough to have it on the plate; but drifting snow is a serious obstacle to an amateur photographer —­ besides which, my camera was on Stubberud’s sledge, buried at least four feet down.

In the course of our digging we had had the misfortune to make two or three serious rents in the thin canvas of the tent, and the drift was not long in finding a way through these when the tent was up again.  To conclude my day’s work I had, therefore, a longish tailor’s job, while the other two men were digging out a good feed for the dogs, who had been on half-rations for the last two days.  That night we went rather short of sleep.  Vulcan, the oldest dog in Johansen’s team, was chiefly to blame for this.  In his old age Vulcan was afflicted with a bad digestion, for even Eskimo dogs may be liable to this infirmity, hardy as they generally are.  The protracted blizzard had given the old fellow a