The dogs, who must have found the stay at Funchal rather too warm for their taste, expressed their delight at the welcome breeze by getting up a concert.  We felt we could not grudge them the pleasure this time.

It was pure enjoyment to come on deck the morning after leaving Madeira; there was an added note of friendliness in every man’s “Good-morning,” and a smile twinkled in the corner of every eye.  The entirely new turn things had taken, and the sudden change to fresh fields for thought and imagination, acted as a beneficent stimulus to those who, the day before, had contemplated a trip round the Horn.  I think what chiefly amused them was their failure to smell a rat before.  “How could I have been such an ass as not to think of it long ago?” said Beck, as he sent a nearly new quid into the sea.  “Of course, it was as plain as a pikestaff.  Here we are with all these dogs, this fine ‘observation house,’ with its big kitchen-range and shiny cloth on the table, and everything else.  Any fool might have seen what it meant.”  I consoled him with the remark that it is always easy to be wise after the event, and that I thought it very lucky no one had discovered our destination prematurely.

Those of us who had been obliged hitherto to keep to themselves what they knew, and to resort to all kinds of stratagems to avoid making any disclosure, were certainly no less pleased at being rid of the secret; now they could talk freely to their heart’s content.  If we had previously had to resort to mystification, there was now nothing to prevent our laying our cards on the table.  So many a conversation had come to a standstill because those who had a number of questions to ask did not dare to put them, and those who could have told held their tongues.  Hereafter it would be a very long time before we were at a loss for subjects of conversation; a theme had suddenly presented itself, so varied and comprehensive that it was difficult at first to know where to begin.  There were many men on board the Fram with a wealth of experience gained during years spent within the Arctic Circle, but to almost all of us the great Antarctic continent was a terra incognita.  I myself was the only man on board who had seen Antarctica; perhaps one or two of my companions had in former days passed in the vicinity of an Antarctic iceberg on a voyage round Cape Horn, but that was all.

What had previously been accomplished in the way of exploration in the South, and the narratives of the men who had endeavoured to extend our knowledge of that inhospitable continent, were also things that very few of the ship’s company had had time or opportunity to study, nor had they perhaps had any reason to do so.  Now there was every possible reason.  I considered it an imperative necessity that every man should acquaint himself as far as possible with the work of previous expeditions; this was the only way of becoming in some measure familiar with the conditions in which we should have to work.