472 Chapter VIII. 



" Thursday, October 4th. The ice is rather impassable 

 in places, but there are particular lanes or tracts ; taking- it 

 altogether, it is in good condition for sledging- and snow- 

 shoeing, though the surface is rather soft, so that the 

 dogs sink in a little. This is probably chiefly owing to 

 there having been no strong winds of late, so that the 

 snow has not been well packed together. 



" Life goes on in the regular routine ; there is always 

 some little piece of work turning up to be done. 

 Yesterday the breaking in of the young dogs began.* 

 It was just the three ' Barbara,' ' Freia,' and 'Susine.' 

 ' Gulabrand ' is such a miserable, thin wretch, that he is 

 escaping for the present. They were unmanageable at 

 first, and rushed about in all directions ; but in a little while 

 they drew like old dogs, and were altogether better than 

 we expected. ' Kvik,' of course, set them a noble 

 example. It fell to Mogstad's lot to begin the training, 

 as it was his week for looking after the dogs. This duty 

 is taken in turns now, each man has his week of attendin<>- 



^5 



to them both morning and afternoon. 



' It seems to me that a very satisfactory state of feeling- 

 prevails on board at present, when we are just entering 

 on our second Arctic night, which we hope is to be a 

 longer, and probably also a colder one, than any people 

 before us have experienced. There is appreciably less 



These were the puppies born on December i3th, 1893 ; only four 

 of them were now alive. 



