270 PREPARING FOR WINTER 



doesn't matter one of us had the bright idea of taking 

 Nature in hand, and working with her instead of against 

 her. The proposal was that we should dig out a car- 

 penter's shop in the big snow-drift, and put it in direct 

 communication with the hut. This was no sooner 

 suggested than adopted unanimously. And now began 

 a work of tunnelling which lasted a good while, for one 

 excavation led to another, and we did not stop until we 

 had a whole underground village probably one of the 

 most interesting works ever executed round a Polar 

 station. Let us begin with the morning when we 

 thrust the first spade into the drift; it was Thursday, 

 April 20. While three men went to work to dig right 

 into the drift from the hut door westward, three more 

 were busy connecting it with the hut. This was done 

 by stretching boards the same that we had used on 

 the Fram as a false deck for the dogs from the drift 

 up to the roof of the pent-house. The open part 

 between the drift and the pent-house on the northern 

 side was filled up entirely into a solid wall, which went 

 up to join the roof that had just been put on. The 

 space between the pent-house and the drift on the 

 south wall was left open as an exit. But now we had 

 the building fever on us, and one ambitious project 

 succeeded another. Thus we agreed to dig a passage 

 the whole length of the drift, and terminate it by a 

 large snow-hut, in which we were to have a vapour 

 bath. That was something like a plan a vapour bath 



