BY SLEDGE AND KAYAK 267 



turned out to get breakfast ready and start off, it was 

 still snowing, and deep, loose snow covered everything — 

 a state of things bad beyond description. There was 

 no sense in going on, and we decided to wait and see 

 how matters would turn out. Meanwhile we were 

 hungry, but a full breakfast we could not afford, so 

 I prepared a small portion of fish soup, and we re- 

 turned to the bag again — Johansen to sleep on, I to 

 rereckon all my observations from the time we left 

 .the Fram, and see if some error might not explain 

 the mystery why no land was yet to be found. The 

 sun had partially appeared, and I tried, though in vain, 

 to take an observation. I stood waiting for more than 

 an hour with the theodolite up, but the sun went in 

 again and remained out of sio'ht. I have calculated 

 and calculated and thought and thought, but can find 

 no mistake of any importance, and the whole thing is 

 a riddle to me. I am beginning seriously to doubt 

 that we may be too far west, after all, I simply can- 

 not conceive that we are too far east ; for in such a 

 case we cannot, at any rate, be more than 5° farther 

 east than our observations* make us. Supposing, for in- 

 stance, that our watches have gone too fast, 'Johann- 

 sen ' t cannot, at all events, have gained more than 



* As it proved later, we were, in reality, about 6° farther east than we 

 thought. 



1 1 called my watch thus after Johannsen, the watchmaker in London 

 who supplied it. 



