away we went among the haycocks.  I could see how Hanssen was enjoying himself; this was just what he wanted.  We went faster and faster.  Curiously enough, we passed several of these formations without noticing anything, and began to hope that we should get through.  Then suddenly Hanssen’s three leading dogs disappeared, and the others stopped abruptly.  He got them hauled up without much trouble and came over.  We others, who were following, crossed without accident, but our further progress seemed doubtful, for after a few more paces the same three dogs fell in again.  We were now in exactly the same kind of place as before; crevasses ran in every direction, like a broken pane of glass.  I had had enough, and would take no more part in this death-ride.  I announced decisively that we must turn back, follow our tracks, and go round it all.  Hanssen looked quite disappointed.  “Well,” he said, “but we shall be over it directly.”  “I dare say we shall,” I replied; “but we must go back first.”  This was evidently hard on him; there was one formation in particular that attracted him, and he wanted to try his strength with it.  It was a pressure-mass that, as far as appearance went, might just as well have been formed out in the drift-ice.  It looked as if it was formed of four huge lumps of ice raised on end against each other.  We knew what it contained without examination —­ a yawning chasm.  Hanssen cast a last regretful glance upon it, and then turned back.

We could now see all our surroundings clearly.  This place lay, as we had remarked before, in a hollow; we followed it round, and came up the rise on the south without accident.  Here we caught sight of one of our flags; it stood to the east of us, and thus confirmed our suspicion that we had been going too far to the west.  We had one more contact with the broken ground, having to cross some crevasses and pass a big hole; but then it was done, and we could once more rejoice in having solid ice beneath us.  Hanssen, however, was not satisfied till he had been to look into the hole.  In the evening we reached the two snow-huts we had built on the last trip, and we camped there, twenty-six miles from the depot.  The huts were drifted up with snow, so we left them in peace, and as the weather was now so mild and fine, we preferred the tent.

It had been an eventful day, and we had reason to be satisfied that we had come off so easily.  The going had been good, and it had all gone like a game.  When we started the next morning it was overcast and thick, and before we had gone very far we were in the midst of a south-wester, with snow so thick that we could hardly see ten sledge-lengths ahead of us.  We had intended to reach the depot that day, but if this continued, it was more than doubtful whether we should find it.  Meanwhile we put on the pace.  It was a long way on, so there was no danger of driving past it.  During this while it had remained clear in the zenith, and