A HARD STRUGGLE 217 



our day's march. This brings us down to latitude 

 ^^ 20' or so. 



" At last, then, we have come down to latitudes which 

 have been reached by human beings before us, and it 

 cannot possibly be far to land. A little w^hile before we 

 halted yesterday we crossed a lane or pool exactly like 

 the two previous ones, only broader still. Here, too, I 

 heard the blowing of whales, but although I was not far 

 from the hole whence the noise presumably came, and 

 although the opening there was quite small, I could per- 

 ceive nothing. Johansen, who came afterwards with the 

 dogs, said that as soon as they reached the frozen lane 

 they got scent of something and wanted to go against 

 the wind. Curious that there should be so many nar- 

 whals in the lanes here. 



" The ice we are now travelling over is surprisingly 

 bad. There are few or no new ridges, only small older 

 irregularities, with now and then deep snow^ in between, 

 and then these curious broad, endless lanes, which re- 

 semble each other, and run exactly parallel, and are all 

 unlike those we have met before. They are remark- 

 able from the fact that, while formerly I always observed 

 the ice on the north side of the lane to drift westward, 

 in comparison with that which lay on the south side, the 

 reverse was here the case. It was the ice on the south 

 side which drifted westward. 



"As I am afraid that we are continually drifting rap- 

 idly westward, I have kept a somewhat easterly course — 



