THE JOURNEY SOUTHWARD 539 



" Then dinner was served, and how nice it was to 

 have bread, butter, milk, sugar, coffee, and everything that 

 a year had taught us to do without and yet to long for ! 

 But the height of comfort was reached when we were 

 able to throw off our dirty rags, have a warm bath, and 

 get rid of as much dirt as was possible in one bout; but 

 we only succeeded in becoming anything like clean af- 

 ter several days and many attempts. Then clean, soft 

 clothes from head to foot, hair cut, and the shao-crv 

 beard shaved off, and the transformation from savage 

 to European was complete, and even more sudden than 

 in the reverse direction. How delightfully comfortable 

 it was to be able to put on one's clothes without being 

 made greasy, but, most of all, to be able to move with- 

 out feeling them stick to the body with every movement ! 



"It was not very long before Johansen and the others 

 followed, with the kayaks and our things. Johansen re- 

 lated how these warm-hearted Englishmen had given 

 him and the Norwegian flag a hearty cheer when they 

 came up and saw it waving beside a dirty woollen shirt 

 on a bamboo rod, which he had put up by my orders, 

 so that I could find my way back to him. On the way 

 hither they had not allowed him to touch the sledges, 

 he had only to walk beside them like a passenger, and 

 he said that, of all the ways in which we had travelled 

 over drift-ice, this was without comparison the most com- 

 fortable. His reception in the hut was scarcely less hos- 

 pitable than mine, and he soon went through the same 



