JV£ SAV GOOD-BYE TO THE " ERAM " 139 



our companions, and, without many words being uttered 

 on either side, started out into soHtude. Peter shook his 

 head sorrowfully as we went off. I turned round when 

 we had gone some little way, and saw his figure on the 

 top of the hummock ; he was still looking after us. His 

 thoughts were probably sad ; perhaps he believed that he 

 had spoken to us for the last time. 



We found large expanses of flat ice, and covered the 

 ground quickly, farther and farther awa)- from our com- 

 rades, into the unknown, where we two alone and the 

 doo[s were to wander for months. The Frams rieeino^ 

 had disappeared long ago behind the margin of the ice. 

 We often came on piled-up ridges and uneven ice, where 

 the sledges had to be helped and sometimes carried over. 

 It often happened, too, that they capsized altogether, and 

 it was only by dint of strenuous hauling that we righted 

 them again. Somewhat exhausted by all this hard work, 

 we stopped finally at 6 o'clock in the evening, and had 

 then gone about 9 miles during the day. They were not 

 quite the marches I had reckoned on, but we hoped that 

 by degrees the sledges would become lighter and the ice 

 better to travel over. The latter, too, seems to have been 

 the case at first. On Sunday, March 17th, I say in my 

 diary : " The ice appears to be more even the farther 

 north we get; came across a lane, however, yesterday 

 which necessitated a long detour.* At half-past six we 



* It was not advisable, for many reasons, to cross the lanes in the 



