Report concerning the remaining part of the expedition. 163 
the thaw takes place, I regard as very remote, and thus the safety of 
his return would become questionable.” 
It must also be borne in mind that our party had something to do 
on board the “Alabama” — viz to get her ready to sail home during 
the latter part of the summer, and it must not be forgotten that the two 
men left on board were not able-bodied seamen. — At this time our party 
knew nothing of the fact that the “Alabama” was damaged, which, as 
will be remembered, happened ten days after we left the ship on March 
3rd. — The following decision was then arrived at: “We were to start for 
the ship on April 30th, the route to be followed being that of the out- 
ward journey, but not till the exact position had been located. The 
date of our descent from the Inlandice will decide whether we are to 
continue direct towards Alabama Havn or to take our way over Dan- 
mark’s Havn in order to provision, it being about 125 miles from the 
place of descent to “Alabama”, but only about 52 miles to Danmark’s 
Havn, and we could always reckon on getting supplies at the latter 
place”. 
After this decision had been made, our first dog “Christian” was 
shot to supply food for the others. On April 30th it was again bad weather 
with a quantity of snow, so that we could not observe the sun, for which 
reason we stayed another day in this place, having now a fairly good 
idea of the situation and not risking very much by staying on. It was, 
moreover, rather important to decide our position, and therefore we 
did not get away on our return journey until May Ist at 1 p.m. 
Our progress in a northerly direction was now rather rapid as it was 
downhill, so that the sledge practically ran by itself, although both 
OLSEN and POULSEN were sitting on it, while I was upon skis, but 
toward the end it was difficult for me to keep up, so that at 5 р. m. 
I took off the skis and put them on the sledge. We now drove some- 
what nearer to the land and stopped at 8.30 р. т. after having covered 
about 15 miles with a declivity of about 450 m. We had, therefore, made 
our distance, but about 6 p.m. we had encountered half a gale with 
snow at our backs, which at last prevented our seeing even three metres 
ahead of us. In the bay between Cape Treklover on Prins Axel’s Nunatak 
and Juel-Brockdorff’s Nunatak, the northernmost nunatak on the west 
coast, we observed several fissures in the ice, obviously caused by the 
pressure of the ice on the land, as the direction of the fissures was 
seen to run parallel with it. But they were all narrow, at the utmost 
about half a metre broad and easy to cross. 
The storm which had increased in the course of the afternoon con- 
tinued for three days with snow, so that it was impossible to see any- 
thing whatever, and we had to lie quiet. We could just see one end 
of the sledge when standing at the other. It would in fact have been 
too risky to venture out in such weather, now that we had the bad ice 
in front of us, and where it was necessary to select the best way. 
11* 
