DEPARTURE FROM NORWAY 107 



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 experi- 

 enced 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; pre- 

 sumably 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. 



