coming inland at full speed. I had been engaged in looking out ahead,
and turned round suddenly to throw a last glance in the direction
of the spot that to us stood for all that was beautiful on earth,
when I caught sight of -- what do you think? A cinematograph. "He
can't be taking anything but air now, can he?" -- "Hardly that." The
cinematograph vanished below the horizon.

The going was excellent, but the atmosphere became thicker as we went
inland. For the first twelve miles from the edge of the Barrier I
had been sitting with Hassel, but, seeing that Wisting's dogs could
manage two on the sledge better than the others, I moved. Hanssen
drove first; he had to steer by compass alone, as the weather had
got thicker. After him came Bjaaland, then Hassel, and, finally,
Wisting and I. We had just gone up a little slope, when we saw that
it dropped rather steeply on the other side; the descent could not be
more than 20 yards long. I sat with my back to the dogs, looking aft,
and was enjoying the brisk drive. Then suddenly the surface by the
side of the sledge dropped perpendicularly, and showed a yawning black
abyss, large enough to have swallowed us all, and a little more. A few
inches more to one side, and we should have taken no part in the Polar
journey. We guessed from this broken surface that we had come too far
to the east, and altered our course more westerly. When we had reached
safer ground, I took the opportunity of putting on my ski and driving
so; in this way the weight was more distributed. Before very long it
cleared a little, and we saw one of our mark-flags straight ahead. We
went up to it; many memories clung to the spot -- cold and slaughter
of dogs. It was there we had killed the three puppies on the last trip.

We had then covered seventeen miles, and we camped, well pleased
with the first day of our long journey. My belief that, with all in