234 FARTHEST NORTH 



the side of a lane. There seemed to be prospects of fresh 

 food in such surroundings, though, curiously enough, 

 neither of us has any particular craving for it; we are 

 quite satisfied with the food we have ; but for the dogs it 

 would be of great importance. We had to kill again last 

 nisfht; this time it was 'Pan,' our best do"'. It could 

 not be helped ; he was quite worn out, and could not do 

 much more. The seven dos^s we have left can now live 

 three days on the food he provided. 



"This is quite unexpected: the ice is very much broken 

 up here — mere pack-ice, were it not for some large floes or 

 flat spaces in between. If this ice had time to slacken it 

 would be easy enough to row between the floes. Some- 

 times when we were stopped by lanes yesterday, and I 

 went up on to some high hummock to look ahead, my 

 heart sank within me, and I thought we should be 

 constrained to give up the hope of getting farther; it 

 was looking out over a very chaos of lumps of ice and 

 brash mixed together in open water. To jump from 

 piece to piece in such waters, with dogs and two heavy 

 sledges following one, is not exactly easy ; but by means 

 of investigation and experiment we managed eventually 

 to get over this lane too, and after going through rubble 

 for a while came on to flat ice again ; and thus it kept on 

 with new lanes repeatedly. 



" The ice we are now travelling over is almost entirely 

 new ice with occasional older floes in between. It con- 

 tinues to grow thinner, here it is for the greater part 



