The day before Christmas Eve we were back at Framheim.  Lindstrom had made good use of his time in our absence.  The ice had disappeared from the loft, and therewith the rain from the ceiling.  New linoleum had been laid down over half the floor, and marks of the paint-brush were visible on the ceiling.  These efforts had possibly been made with an eye to the approaching festival, but in other respects we abstained from any attempt at keeping Christmas.  It did not agree with the time of year; constant blazing sunshine all through the twenty-four hours could not be reconciled with a northerner’s idea of Christmas.  And for that reason we had kept the festival six months before.  Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday, and it passed just like any ordinary Sunday.  Perhaps the only difference was that we used a razor that day instead of the usual beard-clipper.  On Christmas Day we took a holiday, and Lindstrom prepared a banquet of skua gulls.  Despise this dish as one may, it tasted undeniably of —­ bird.

The numerous snow-houses were now in a sad way.  Under the weight of the constantly increasing mass, the roofs of most of the rooms were pressed so far in that there was just enough space to crawl on hands and knees.  In the Crystal Palace and the Clothing Store we kept all our skin clothing, besides a good deal of outfit, which it was intended to take on board the Fram when she and the southern party arrived.  If the sinking continued, it would be a long business digging these things out again, and in order to have everything ready we made up our minds to devote a few days to this work at once.  We hauled the snow up from these two rooms through a well twelve feet deep by means of tackles.  It was a long job, but when we had finished this part of the labyrinth was as good as ever.  We had no time to deal with the vapour-bath or the carpenter’s shop just then.  There still remained the survey of the south-western corner of the Bay of Whales and its surroundings.  On an eight days’ sledge journey, starting at the New Year, we ranged about this district, where we were surprised to find the solid Barrier divided into small islands, separated by comparatively broad sounds.  These isolated masses of ice could not possibly be afloat, although the depth in one or two places, where we had a chance of making soundings, proved to be as much as 200 fathoms.  The only rational explanation we could think of was that there must be a group of low-lying islands here, or in any case shoals.  These “ice islands,” if one may call them so, had a height of 90 feet and sloped evenly down to the water on the greater part of their circumference.  One of the sounds, that penetrated into the Barrier a short distance inside the western cape of the bay, continued southward and gradually narrowed to a mere fissure.  We followed this until it lost itself, thirty geographical miles within the Barrier.