90 NEW LAND. 



Outside the door they had built quite a roomy porch, where they 

 kept provisions and things of divers kinds which they did not 

 care to have inside. It would be still more comfortable when they 

 had put up the inner tent which I had made for them, and now 

 brought with me. 



During the evening the weather cleared still more, and in 

 the end became very fine. The full moon shed her bluish-white 

 beams across the snow and ice ; the precipices and chasms. It 

 was as light as day, and so still so marvellously still. Not a 

 breath of wind was to be felt from any quarter, not a sound of life 

 to be heard other than from our dogs. 



We sat up late that evening ; seemingly none of us wished to 

 go to bed. We had so much to talk about, and the coffee was so 

 delicious that it was past midnight before Olsen and I crept into 

 our tent, although we had to be up early next day. Baumann was 

 going across the neck to the ' Fram ' to fetch a few small things 

 which they had run out of, and Olsen and I had planned a trip 

 across Norskebugten, first to Graham Island, and thence up to the 

 big fjords farther north. 



But we had drunk too deeply of the coffee neither Olsen nor 

 I slept a wink that night. At four o'clock I was up, and out to 

 look at the weather. As it was as brilliantly fine as in the even- 

 ing, we began to get breakfast ready at once ; it was better to 

 make the most of the day. There was no telling how long the 

 good weather might be likely to last. 



In the other tent the situation was pretty much the same as in 

 ours. They had not slept particularly well either, and turned out 

 about the same time, so that Baumann was ready to start even 

 before it was light. He set across the neck with a fair load of 

 meat on his sledge, although the snow had not yet hardened 

 sufficiently to be very good for sledging purposes. . 



Olsen and I decided to remove the over-runners from our 

 sledges and drive across the bay on the German-silver plates, and 

 consequently we did not get off until an hour after Baumann had 

 started. The mate was going to make vise of the day to go 

 shooting, and started at the same time that we did. 



Just as I was driving down from the ice-foot on to the fine 



