23/V 
348 I. P. Косн. 
to be able to recover from an illness, which under these circum- 
stances hampered our movements and depressed our spirits. 
The weather on 22/V. In the morning and the forenoon a light 
mist; the sun visible, calm; now and then a faint suggestion of snow 
fall. At 2 p.m. wind from WSW, thick with snow (the greatest 
snow fall we had hitherto had on the journey, though trifling in it- 
self). From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. the wind rose to a velocity of 5m, 
and little by little shifted to NW. 8 p.m. wind 8m direction north, 
still thick with snow. The wind continued with a fall of snow and 
a considerable drift till 23/V, after that it gradually fell off; at 6 p. m. 
23/V calm. Constant mist and haze. Yesterday and to-day the 
temperature has been unusually high, though it has not been 
measured. The snow which fell on our sleeping bags during the 
drive yesterday melted. 
The heavy fall of snow served us rather a nasty trick; in the 
thick weather we overshot the sledge box depot. I realized this, 
when we had driven about 20km; our course must now be too 
southerly and consequently also too westerly, as we must otherwise 
have reached the sea ice; but Togras, deceived by the fact that the 
wind had shifted from WSW to north, thought that our course was 
far too easterly. So he wished to drive towards SW, whereas I 
wished to drive towards SE. Our uncertainty was thus sufficiently 
proved, and as the dogs were furthermore very much exhausted by 
the 40 km journey across land, I resolved to camp where we were, 
in order to await an improvement in the weather conditions. Stopped 
22/V at 9 p.m. 
In order to get away from our extremely forward dogs, we 
dragged the musk ox into the tent, where we skinned and quartered 
it. At 2.30 a.m. (23/V) we turned in, having got no other food 
during the last thirty-six hours than a little raw frozen meat and 
some raw marrow. We tried to eat the fresh warm liver raw, but 
it made us feel sick. We could not even get any water, but had to 
content ourselves with eating a little snow. 
23/V the weather was thick, but the wind and consequently 
also the snow drift abating somewhat at noon, Togras thought we 
ought to start. He was undoubtedly right in this, but it now turned 
out that the trifling effort to rise gave me rather a bad fever; be- 
sides I was very tired. BERTELSEN had apparently not suffered quite 
so much from the constipation and the fasting cure, but was also 
rather bad. We tried to brace ourselves with twenty-five drops of 
essence of camphor, but it did not help me, and consequently I 
asked Togras to wait a little and then drive alone with an empty 
sledge to the depot to fetch the things we required, that is, petroleum 
