that was left was a little free space for the man at the wheel.  As for the officer of the watch, it looked as if he would be badly off for elbow-room; there was reason to fear that he would be compelled to kill time by standing stock-still in one spot through the whole watch; but just then there was no time for small troubles of this sort.  No sooner was the last dog on board than we set about putting all visitors ashore, and then the motor began working the windlass under the forecastle.  “The anchor’s up!” Full speed ahead, and the voyage towards our goal, 16,000 miles away, was begun.  Quietly and unobserved we went out of the fjord at dusk; a few of our friends accompanied us out.

After the pilot had left us outside Flekkero, it was not long before the darkness of the August evening hid the outlines of the country from our view; but Oxo and Ryvingen flashed their farewells to us all through the night.

We had been lucky with wind and weather at the commencement of our Atlantic cruise in the early summer; this time we were, if possible, even more favoured.  It was perfectly calm when we sailed, and the North Sea lay perfectly calm for several days after.  What we had to do now was to become familiar with and used to, all these dogs, and this was enormously facilitated by the fact that for the first week we experienced nothing but fine weather.

Before we sailed there was no lack of all kinds of prophecies of the evil that would befall us with our dogs.  We heard a number of these predictions; presumably a great many more were whispered about, but did not reach our ears.  The unfortunate beasts were to fare terribly badly.  The heat of the tropics would make short work of the greater part of them.  If any were left, they would have but a miserable respite before being washed overboard or drowned in the seas that would come on deck in the west wind belt.  To keep them alive with a few bits of dried fish was an impossibility, etc.

As everyone knows, all these predictions were very far from being fulfilled; the exact opposite happened.  Since then I expect most of us who made the trip have been asked the question —­ Was not that voyage to the South an excessively wearisome and tedious business?  Didn’t you get sick of all those dogs?  How on earth did you manage to keep them alive?

It goes without saying that a five months’ voyage in such waters as we were navigating must necessarily present a good deal of monotony; how much will depend on what resources one has for providing occupation.  In this respect we had in these very dogs just what was wanted.  No doubt it was work that very often called for the exercise of patience; nevertheless, like any other work, it furnished diversion and amusement, and so much the more since we here had to deal with living creatures that had sense enough fully to appreciate and reciprocate in their own way any advance that was made to them.