Would it be unreasonable if those who have endured and achieved so much had now come home to rest?  But Amundsen points onward.  So much for that; now for the real object.  Next year his course will be through Behring Strait into the ice and frost and darkness of the North, to drift right across the North Polar Sea —­ five years, at least.  It seems almost superhuman; but he is the man for that, too.  Fram is his ship, “forward” is his motto, and he will come through.[1] He will carry out his main expedition, the one that is now before him, as surely and steadily as that he has just come from.

But while we are waiting, let us rejoice over what has already been achieved.  Let us follow the narrow sledge-tracks that the little black dots of dogs and men have drawn across the endless white surface down there in the South —­ like a railroad of exploration into the heart of the unknown.  The wind in its everlasting flight sweeps over these tracks in the desert of snow.  Soon all will be blotted out.

But the rails of science are laid; our knowledge is richer than before.

And the light of the achievement shines for all time.

Fridtjof Nansen.

Lysaker,

May 3, 1912.

FIGURE 1

The Opening of Roald Amundsen’s Manuscript.

To face page I, Vol.  I.

CHAPTER I

The History of the South Pole[2]

“Life is a ball In the hands of chance.”

Brisbane, Queensland, April 13, 1912.

Here I am, sitting in the shade of palms, surrounded by the most wonderful vegetation, enjoying the most magnificent fruits, and writing —­ the history of the South Pole.  What an infinite distance seems to separate that region from these surroundings!  And yet it is only four months since my gallant comrades and I reached the coveted spot.

I write the history of the South Pole!  If anyone had hinted a word of anything of the sort four or five years ago, I should have looked upon him as incurably mad.  And yet the madman would have been right.  One circumstance has followed on the heels of another, and everything has turned out so entirely different from what I had imagined.

On December 14, 1911, five men stood at the southern end of our earth’s axis, planted the Norwegian flag there, and named the region after the man for whom they would all gladly have offered their lives —­ King Haakon VII.  Thus the veil was torn aside for all time, and one of the greatest of our earth’s secrets had ceased to exist.

Since I was one of the five who, on that December afternoon, took part in this unveiling, it has fallen to my lot to write —­ the history of the South Pole.