that we now refused to offer them a thought?  Was it possibly instinct that told us this?  I do not know, but certain it is that Hanssen and I agreed, as we stood there discussing our prospects, that behind the farthest ridge we saw, we should conquer the glacier.  We had a feverish desire to go and have a look at it; but the way round the many crevasses was long, and —­ I may as well admit it —­ we were beginning to get tired.  The return, downhill as it was, did not take long, and soon we were able to tell our comrades that the prospects for the morrow were very promising.

While we had been away, Hassel had measured the Nilsen Mountain, and found its height to be 15,500 feet above the sea.  How well I remember that evening, when we stood contemplating the glorious sight that Nature offered, and believing the air to be so clear that anything within range of vision must have shown itself; and how well, too, I remember our astonishment on the return journey on finding the whole landscape completely transformed!  If it had not been for Mount Helmer Hanssen, it would have been difficult for us to know where we were.  The atmosphere in these regions may play the most awkward tricks.  Absolutely clear as it seemed to us that evening, it nevertheless turned out later that it had been anything but clear.  One has, therefore, to be very careful about what one sees or does not see.  In most cases it has proved that travellers in the Polar regions have been more apt to see too much than too little; if, however, we had charted this tract as we saw it the first time, a great part of the mountain ranges would have been omitted.

During the night a gale sprang up from the south-east, and blew so that it howled in the guy-ropes of the tent; it was well that the tent-pegs had a good hold.  In the morning, while we were at breakfast, it was still blowing, and we had some thoughts of waiting for a time; but suddenly, without warning, the wind dropped to such an extent that all our hesitation vanished.  What a change the south-east wind had produced!  The splendid covering of snow that the day before had made ski-running a pleasure, was now swept away over great stretches of surface, exposing the hard substratum.  Our thoughts flew back; the crampons we had left behind seemed to dance before my eyes, backwards and forwards, grinning and pointing fingers at me.  It would be a nice little extra trip back to the Butcher’s to fetch them.

Meanwhile, we packed and made everything ready.  The tracks of the day before were not easy to follow; but if we lost them now and again on the smooth ice surface, we picked them up later on a snow-wave that had resisted the attack of the wind.  It was hard and strenuous work for the drivers.  The sledges were difficult to manage over the smooth, sloping ice; sometimes they went straight, but just as often cross-wise, requiring sharp attention to keep them from capsizing.  And this had to be prevented