218 THE EASTERN SLEDGE JOURNEY 



wished, there was nothing to prevent our performing 

 all the work of the camp with bare hands and still pre- 

 serving our finger-tips unharmed. As I had no dog- 

 team to look after, I midertook the duty of attending 

 to our own needs ; that is to say, I acted as cook. This 

 occupation also was considerably easier now than it had 

 been when the temperature was below - 60° F. At 

 that time it took half an hour to turn the snow in the 

 cooker into water; now it was done in ten minutes, 

 and the cook ran no risk whatever of getting his fingers 

 frozen in the process. 



Ever since we landed on the Barrier in January, 1911, 

 we had been expecting to hear a violent cannonade as 

 the result of the movement of the mass of ice. We 

 had now lived a whole winter at Framlieim without 

 having observed, as far as I know, the slightest sign 

 of a sound. This was one of many indications that 

 the ice round our winter-quarters was not in motion 

 at all. 



No one, I believe, had noticed anything of the ex- 

 pected noise on the sledge journeys either, but at the 

 place where we camped on the night of November 8 we 

 did hear it. There was a report about once in two 

 minutes, not exactly loud, but still, there it was. It 

 sounded just as if there was a whole battery of small 

 guns in action down in the depths below us. A few 

 hundred j^ards to the west of the camp there were a 

 number of small hummocks, which might indicate the 



