Moral:  Don’t go on voyages of discovery, my friend; you’re no good at it!

As soon as we were out of Ross Sea and had entered the South Pacific Ocean, the old circus started again —­ in other words, the Fram began her everlasting rolling from one side to the other.  When this was at its worst, and cups and plates were dancing the fandango in the galley, its occupant’s only wish was, “Oh, to be in Buenos Aires!” For that matter, it is not a very easy job to be cook in such circumstances, but ours was always in a good humour, singing and whistling all day long.  How well the Fram understands the art of rolling is shown by the following little episode.

One afternoon a couple of us were sitting drinking coffee on a tool-box that stood outside the galley.  As ill-luck would have it, during one of the lurches the lashing came loose, and the box shot along the deck.  Suddenly it was checked by an obstacle, and one of those who were sitting on it flew into the air, through the galley door, and dashed past the cook with a splendid tiger’s leap, until he landed face downwards at the other end of the galley, still clinging like grim death to his cup, as though he wanted something to hold on to.  The face he presented after this successful feat of aviation was extremely comical, and those who saw it had a hearty fit of laughter.

As has already been said, we went very well for a time after reaching the Pacific, a fair wind for fourteen days together, and I began to hope that we were once more in what are called the “westerlies.”  However, nothing is perfect in this world, and we found that out here, as we had icebergs every day, and were constantly bothered by snow-squalls or fog; the former were, of course, to be preferred, as it was at any rate clear between the squalls; but fog is the worst thing of all.  It sometimes happened that all hands were on deck the whole night to work the ship at a moment’s notice, and there were never less than two men on the lookout forward.  The engine, too, was always ready to be started instantly.  A little example will show how ready the crew were at any time.

One Sunday afternoon, when Hansen, Kristensen and I were on watch, the wind began to draw ahead, so that we had to beat.  It was blowing quite freshly, but I did not want to call the watch below, as they might need all the sleep they could get, and Hansen and I were to put the ship about.  Kristensen was steering, but gave us a hand when he could leave the wheel.  As the ship luffed up into the wind and the sails began to flap pretty violently, the whole of the watch below suddenly came rushing on deck in nothing but their unmentionables and started to haul.  Chance willed it that at the same moment an iceberg came out of the fog, right in front of our bows.  It was not many minutes, either, before we were on the other tack, and the watch below did not linger long on deck.  With so few clothes on it was no pleasure to be out in that cold, foggy air.  They slept so lightly, then, that it took no more noise than that to wake them.  When I afterwards asked one of them —­ I think it was Beck —­ what made them think of coming up, he replied that they thought we were going to run into an iceberg and were trying to get out of the way.