and forwards down below without uttering a sound.  These crevasses were not deep, but they were steep-sided, so that the dog could not get out without help.  The two dogs I have mentioned undoubtedly met their death in this way:  a slow death it must be, when one remembers how tenacious of life a dog is.  It happened several times that dogs disappeared, were absent for some days, and then came back; possibly they had been down a crevasse, and had finally succeeded in getting out of it again.  Curiously enough, they did not pay much attention to the weather when they went on trips of this kind.  When the humour took them, they would disappear, even if the temperature was down in the fifties below zero, with wind and driving snow.  Thus Jaala, a lady belonging to Bjaaland, took it into her head to go off with three attendant cavaliers.  We came upon them later; they were then lying quietly behind a hummock down on the ice, and seemed to be quite happy.  They had been away for about eight days without food, and during that time the temperature had seldom been above -58deg.  F.

August 23 arrived:  calm, partly overcast, and -43.6deg.F.  Finer weather for taking out our sledges and driving them over to the starting-point could not be imagined.  They had to be brought up through the door of the Clothing Store; it was the largest and the easiest to get through.  We had first to dig away the snow, which latterly had been allowed to collect there, as the inmates of this department had for some time past used the inner passage.  The snow had blotted out everything, so that no sign of the entrance could be seen; but with a couple of strong shovels, and a couple of strong men to use them, the opening was soon laid bare.  To get the sledges up was a longer business; they weighed 880 pounds apiece, and the way up to the surface was steep.  A tackle was rigged, and by hauling and shoving they slowly, one by one, came up into daylight.  We dragged them away to a place near the instrument-screen, so as to get a clear start away from the house.  The dogs were fresh and wild, and wanted plenty of room; a case, not to mention a post, still less the instrument-screen, would all have been objects of extreme interest, to which, if there had been the slightest opportunity, their course would infallibly have been directed.  The protests of their drivers would have been of little avail.  The dogs had not been let loose that morning, and every man was now in his tent harnessing them.  Meanwhile I stood contemplating the packed sledges that stood there ready to begin the long journey.

I tried to work up a little poetry —­ “the ever-restless spirit of man " —­ “the mysterious, awe-inspiring wilderness of ice” —­ but it was no good; I suppose it was too early in the morning.  I abandoned my efforts, after coming to the conclusion that each sledge gave one more the idea of a coffin than of anything else, all the cases being painted black.