124 ON THE WAY TO THE SOUTH 



be able to speak out ! No doubt the others who knew of 

 the plan were equally eager. Secrets are neither amus- 

 ing nor easy to carry about least of all on board a ship, 

 where one has to live at such close quarters as we had. 

 We were chatting together every day, of course, and 

 the uninitiated could not be deterred from leading the 

 conversation round to the ugly difficulties that would 

 embitter our lives and hinder our progress when round- 

 ing the Horn. It was likely enough that we should 

 manage to bring the dogs safely through the tropics 

 once,, but whether we should succeed in doing so twice 

 was more doubtful; and so on to infinity. It is easier 

 to imagine than to describe how awkward all this was, 

 and how cunningly one had to choose one's words to 

 avoid saying too much. Among inexperienced men 

 there would have been no great difficulty, but it must 

 be remembered that on the Fram pretty nearly every 

 second man had spent years of his life in Polar voyages : 

 a single slight hint to them would have been enough to 

 expose the whole plan. That neither those on board 

 nor anyone else discovered it prematurely can only be 

 explained by its being so obvious. 



Our ship was a good deal too dependent on wind and 

 weather to enable us to make any accurate estimate of 

 the time our voyage would occupy, especially as regards 

 those latitudes in which the winds are variable. The 

 estimate for the whole voyage was based on an average 

 speed of four knots, and at this very modest rate, as it may 



