74 FARTHEST NORTH 



of the 40° of frost. Amundsen is now repairing the mill, 

 as there is something wrong with it again, the cog-wheels 

 being worn. He thinks he will be able to get it all right 

 again. Rather chilly work to be lying up there in the 

 wind on the top of the mill, boring in the hard steel and 

 cast-iron by lantern-light, and at such a temperature as 

 we are having now. I stood and watched the lantern- 

 hght up there to-day, and I soon heard the drill work- 

 ins; one could tell the steel was hard; then I could hear 

 clapping of hands. 'Ah,' thought I, ' you may well clap 

 your hands together; it is not a particularly warm job to 

 be lying up there in the wind." The worst of it is one 

 cannot wear mittens for such work, but has to use the 

 bare hands if one is to make any progress, and it would 

 not take long to freeze them off ; but it has to be done, 

 he says, and he will not give in. He is a splendid fellow 

 in all he undertakes, and I console him by saying that 

 there are not many before hmi who have worked on the 

 top of a mill in such frost north of '$>^ . On many ex- 

 peditions they have avoided out-of-door work when the 

 temperature got so low. ' Indeed,' he says, ' I thought 

 that other expeditions were in advance of us in that 

 respect. I imagined we had kept indoors too much.' I 

 had no hesitation in enlightening him on this point; I 

 know he will do his best in any case. 



" This is, indeed, a strange time for me ; I feel as if I 

 were preparing for a summer trip and the sjjriiig were 

 already here, yet it is still midwinter, and the conditions of 



