CLOSED IN AND SHUT OUT. 319 



On August 8, Baumann and I went a walk to ' Skrabdals- 

 odden' (Dredging Valley Point). By a lane close under 

 Middagskollen were lying some walruses. It was as well to be 

 prepared for another winter here, and, in that case, we must have 

 something to give the dogs. We thought we had better make use 

 of the opportunity, and I therefore sent Fosheim and Peder out 

 to capture them. They took provisions for a week, put the ' pram ' 

 on a sledge, and went off south. 



On Saturday, the 10th, Bay and I paid them a visit, and 

 found them in the midst of flensing eight walruses and a bearded 

 seal. We allowed them to treat us to seal-steaks for dinner, and 

 afterwards we came home across Middagskollen to get a view of 

 the fjord. It was anything but an encouraging sight ; there was 

 hardly a hole to be seen anywhere in the ice. 



On Monday, August 12, we lighted the fires in the engine- 

 room to see if everything was in order, and we thought we 

 might as well try, at the same time, to see what thickness of ice 

 we could bore our way through. The forge and Baumann's 

 observation-tent were fetched ; later in the afternoon we heaved 

 off, and tried to make our way through the outside seam in the 

 crack. Two or three hours of hard work brought us only a 

 couple of ship's-lengths outwards. The wind too had gone 

 round to the north, and had driven all the small ice southward 

 towards the edge of the fast ice, so that the vessel lost speed in 

 the rubble. Even in mid-fjord, in the swiftest current from the 

 rivers, we were stopped, had to go back, and moored in to 

 the ice. 



We now had a period of clear weather and frost ; in the morning 

 the ice was so strong round the ship that it would bear the dogs, 

 and on the pools down the fjord one could walk on it. Simmons 

 and I tried to reach the east shore in a sealiug-boat, but the 

 young ice forced us back. 



Day after day the thermometer stood at freezing-point, and 

 our hope of release was the same. 



The dogs, which, as usual in summer, were tethered ashore, 

 were let loose when we left our anchoring place, as we supposed 

 that they would follow the ship. But most of them did nothing 



