In the course of the night the wind veered from south-east to north, falling light, and the weather cleared.  This was a good chance for us, and we were not slow to avail ourselves of it.  A gradually rising ice surface lay before us, bright as a mirror.  As on the preceding days, I stumbled along in front on ski, while the others, without their ski, had to follow and support the sledges.  The surface still offered filled crevasses, though perhaps less frequently than before.  Meanwhile small patches of snow began to show themselves on the polished surface, and soon increased in number and size, until before very long they united and covered the unpleasant ice with a good and even layer of snow.  Then ski were put on again, and we continued our way to the south with satisfaction.

We were all rejoicing that we had now conquered this treacherous glacier, and congratulating ourselves on having at last arrived on the actual plateau.  As we were going along, feeling pleased about this, a ridge suddenly appeared right ahead, telling us plainly that perhaps all our sorrows were not yet ended.  The ground had begun to sink a little, and as we came nearer we could see that we had to cross a rather wide, but not deep, valley before we arrived under the ridge.  Great lines of hummocks and haycock-shaped pieces of ice came in view on every side; we could see that we should have to keep our eyes open.

And now we came to the formation in the glacier that we called the Devil’s Ballroom.  Little by little the covering of snow that we had praised in such high terms disappeared, and before us lay this wide valley, bare and gleaming.  At first it went well enough; as it was downhill, we were going at a good pace on the smooth ice.  Suddenly Wisting’s sledge cut into the surface, and turned over on its side.  We all knew what had happened —­ one of the runners was in a crevasse.  Wisting set to work, with the assistance of Hassel, to raise the sledge, and take it out of its dangerous position; meanwhile Bjaaland had got out his camera and was setting it up.  Accustomed as we were to such incidents, Hanssen and I were watching the scene from a point a little way in advance, where we had arrived when it happened.  As the photography took rather a long time, I assumed that the crevasse was one of the filled ones and presented no particular danger, but that Bjaaland wanted to have a souvenir among his photographs of the numerous crevasses and ticklish situations we had been exposed to.  As to the crack being filled up, there was of course no need to inquire.  I hailed them, and asked how they were getting on.  “Oh, all right,” was the answer; “we’ve just finished.” —­ “What does the crevasse look like?” —­ “Oh, as usual,” they shouted back; “no bottom.”  I mention this little incident just to show how one can grow accustomed to anything in this world.  There were these two —­ Wisting and Hassel —­ lying over a yawning, bottomless abyss, and having their photograph taken; neither of them gave a thought to the serious side of the situation.  To judge from the laughter and jokes we heard, one would have thought their position was something quite different.