SHERARD OSBORNE FJORD 



and yet more than half of the seal has been put aside for the 

 journey on the glacier ! 



The following day we wake up under a flaming sky, with 

 storm-warning clouds drifting before a strong south-wester in 

 the upper air. The temperature is high, swinging between 4° 

 and 8'5° (Cent.), and two strongly developed parhelions with 

 rings indicate great unrest in the air, so that once more we must 

 postpone our start. Sure enough, in the afternoon the rain 

 pours down again, and, as usual, we have to creep into our 

 tents ; but the short periods of sunshine and a temperature in 

 the shade which has been right up to 9° (Cent.) has helped us 

 so that at last the clothes we must use for the journey along the 

 inland-ice have been examined and dried. 



As everything is now ready for the journey and we are only 

 waiting for the weather to clear in order to start, we build by 

 the great river a beacon in memory of Hendrik. Deeply 

 moved, we here remember our deceased comrade, and whilst 

 the others stand about the beacon with lowered flags, I give the 

 following memorial address, first in Danish and then in 

 Greenlandic : 



" Somewhere in my diary I have written that, when a little 

 handful of men like us live ourselves by degrees into a unity 

 on the harsh and desolate coasts, we form, as it were, a small 

 society of our own. The great living world which we left soon 

 becomes so distant as to exist for us merely in our thoughts 

 and in our longings. 



"Our home is the little tent where, tired and hungry, we 

 gather round our experiences after the toil of the day, and our 

 country is that casual strip of coast where for the night we 

 settle down. 



'"We live life as it must be lived in these surroundings, 

 simply and primitively ; we execute our task as conscientiously 

 as each man knows how, and in the solving of the problems 

 which the expedition has set us we learn to know each other 

 more intimately than do people as a rule. 



' The best qualities of each man here meet with the weaker 

 ones, but we help each other according to our ability, and, 



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