THE SPRING AND SUMMER OE i8g4 455 



thought it an excellent opportunity of practising sailing 

 with a square sail; while the rest of our fellows, standing 

 on the icy shore, found it still more diverting to bombard 

 the navigators with snowballs and lumps of ice. It 

 was in this same pool that we tried one day if one of 

 our boats could carry all thirteen of us at once. When 

 the dogs saw us all leave the ship to go to the pool, 

 they followed us in utter bewilderment as to what this 

 unusual movement could mean ; but when we got into 

 the boat they, all of them, sat to work and howled in 

 wild despair; thinking, probably, that they would never 

 see us again. Some of them swam after us, while two 

 cunninsf ones, " Pan " and " Kvik," conceived the brilliant 

 idea of galloping round the pool to the opposite side to 

 meet us. A few days afterwards I was dismayed to find 

 the pool dried up ; a hole had been worn through the 

 ice at the bottom, and all the fresh water had drained 

 out into the sea. So that amusement came to an end. 



In the summer, when we wanted to make an excur- 

 sion over the ice, in addition to such pools we met with 

 lanes in the ice in all directions; but as a rule could 

 easily cross them by jumping from one loose floe to an- 

 other, or leaping right across at narrow places. 



These lanes never attained any great width, and 

 there was consequently no question of getting the 

 Fram afloat in any of them ; and even could we have 

 done so, it would have been of very little avail, as 

 none of them was laro;e enouoh to have taken her 



