The drivers had a warm morning’s work.  They had to drive with great circumspection and patience to grapple with the kind of ground we had before us; a slight mistake might be enough to send both sledge and dogs with lightning rapidity into the next world.  It took, nevertheless, a remarkably short time to cover the distance we had explored on the previous evening; before we knew it, we were at Hell’s Gate.

Bjaaland took an excellent photograph here, which gives a very good idea of the difficulties this part of the journey presented.  In the foreground, below the high snow-ridge that forms one side of a very wide but partly filled-up crevasse, the marks of ski can be seen in the snow.  This was the photographer, who, in passing over this snow-bridge, struck his ski into it to try the strength of the support.  Close to the tracks can be seen an open piece of the crevasse; it is a pale blue at the top, but ends in the deepest black —­ in a bottomless abyss.  The photographer got over the bridge and back with a whole skin, but there could be no question of risking sledges and dogs on it, and it can be seen in the photograph that the sledges have been turned right round to try another way.  The two small black figures in the distance, on the right, are Hassel and I, who are reconnoitring ahead.

It was no very great distance that we put behind us that day-nine and a quarter miles in a straight line.  But, taking into account all the turns and circuits we had been compelled to make, it was not so short after all.  We set our tent on a good, solid foundation, and were well pleased with the day’s work.  The altitude was 8,960 feet above the sea.  The sun was now in the west, and shining directly upon the huge mountain masses.  It was a fairy landscape in blue and white, red and black, a play of colours that defies description.  Clear as it now appeared to be, one could understand that the weather was not all that could be wished, for the south-eastern end of Mount Thorvald Nilsen lost itself in a dark, impenetrable cloud, which led one to suspect a continuation in that direction, though one could not be certain.

Mount Nilsen —­ ah! anything more beautiful, taking it altogether, I have never seen.  Peaks of the most varied forms rose high into the air, partly covered with driving clouds.  Some were sharp, but most were long and rounded.  Here and there one saw bright, shining glaciers plunging wildly down the steep sides, and merging into the underlying ground in fearful confusion.  But the most remarkable of them all was Mount Helmer Hanssen; its top was as round as the bottom of a bowl, and covered by an extraordinary ice-sheet, which was so broken up and disturbed that the blocks of ice bristled in every direction like the quills of a porcupine.  It glittered and burned in the sunlight —­ a glorious spectacle.  There could only be one such mountain in the world, and as a landmark it was priceless.  We knew that we could not mistake that, however the surroundings might appear on the return journey, when possibly the conditions of lighting might be altogether different.