On Maundy Thursday, April 4, we were in long. 180deg. and changed the date, so that we had two Maundy Thursdays in one week; this gave us a good many holidays running, and I cannot say the effect is altogether cheerful; it was a good thing when Easter Tuesday came round as an ordinary week-day.

On May 6 we passed Cape Horn in very fair weather; it is true we, had a snow-squall of hurricane violence, but it did not last much more than half an hour.  For a few days the temperature was a little below freezing-point, but it rose rapidly as soon as we were out in the Atlantic.

From Hobart to Cape Horn we saw no ice.

After passing the Falkland Islands we had a head wind, so that the last part of the trip was nothing to boast of.

On the night of May 21 we passed Montevideo, where the Chief had arrived a few hours before.  From here up the River La Plata we went so slowly on account of head wind that we did not anchor in the roads of Buenos Aires till the afternoon of the 23rd, almost exactly at the same time as the Chief landed at Buenos Aires.  When I went ashore next morning and met Mr. P. Christophersen, he was in great good-humour.  “This is just like a fairy tale,” he said; and it could not be denied that it was an amusing coincidence.  The Chief, of course, was equally pleased.

On the 25th, the Argentine National Fete, the Fram was moored at the same quay that we had left on October 5, 1911.  At our departure there were exactly seven people on board to say good-bye, but, as far as I could see, there were more than this when we arrived; and I was able to make out, from newspapers and other sources, that in the course of a couple of months the third Fram Expedition had grown considerably in popularity.

In conclusion I will give one or two data.  Since the Fram left Christiania on June 7, 1910, we have been two and a half times round the globe; the distance covered is about 54,400 nautical miles; the lowest reading of the barometer during this time was 27.56 inches (700 millimetres) in March, 1911, in the South Pacific, and the highest 30.82 inches (783 millimetres) in October, 1911, in the South Atlantic.

On June 7, 1912, the second anniversary of our leaving Christiania, all the members of the Expedition, except the Chief and myself, left for Norway, and the first half of the Expedition was thus brought to a fortunate conclusion.

CHAPTER I

The “Fram”

By Commodore Christian Blom

Colin Archer says in his description of the Fram, in Fridtjof Nansen’s account of the Norwegian Arctic Expedition, 1893 —­ 1896, that the successful result of an expedition such as that planned and carried out by Dr. Nansen in the years 1893 —­ 1896 must depend on the care with which all possible contingencies are foreseen, and precautions taken to meet them, and the choice of every detail of the equipment with special regard to the use to which it will be put.  To no part of the equipment, he says, could this apply with greater force than to the ship which was to carry Dr. Nansen and his companions on their adventurous voyage.