98 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 



fell asleep with the food on its way to our mouths. 

 Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons 

 in them and the food fly out on the bag." 



The further they went the worse became the condi- 

 tions. On the 8th of April, with ridge after ridge and 

 nothing but rubble to travel over, the work became so 

 disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis 

 and from the highest hummocks viewed the state of 

 affairs ; and as far as the horizon, lay a chaos of such 

 character that progress across was impracticable if he 

 and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they 

 stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles 

 from the Fram, 260 miles from the Pole, latitude 

 86 13-6', longitude 95. 



To reach this point they had been travelling north- 

 westwards for six days, the way due north being 

 impassable ; but on turning south they seemed to enter 

 another country ; so much did the going improve after 

 the first mile that in three days they covered over forty 

 miles. They were making for Petermann Land, which 

 does not exist, or for the wide-stretching Franz Josef 

 Land, also placed on the maps by Payer, which Jack- 

 son had been cutting up into fragments while the Fram 

 was in the ice. Further south difficulties thickened 

 ahead of them till the road became almost as bad as 

 that to the north. Before they reached land the hun- 

 dred days they had allowed themselves had increased to 

 more than half as many again, their dogs had been 

 killed one by one to yield food for the rest, until only 

 two remained ; Nansen was helpless with rheumatism 

 for two days ; and Johansen was nearly killed by a 

 bear. Through a chain of disasters caused by storms 



