"I was busily engaged with my examination of the salinity of the sea-water this afternoon when Mogstad stuck his head in at the door and said that a bear must be prowling about in the neighborhood. On returning after dinner to their work at the great hummock, where they were busy making an ice-cellar for fresh meat, [56] the men found bear-tracks which were not there before. I put on my snow-shoes and went after it. But what terrible going it had been the last few days! Soft slush, in which the snow-shoes sink helplessly. The bear had come from the west right up to the Fram, had stopped and inspected the work that was going on, had then retreated a little, made a considerable detour, and set off eastward at its easy, shambling gait, without deigning to pay any further attention to such a trifle as a ship. It had rummaged about in every hole and corner where there seemed to be any chance of finding food, and had rooted in the snow after anything the dogs had left, or whatever else it might be. It had then gone to the lanes in the ice, and skirted them carefully, no doubt in the hope of finding a seal or two, and after that it had gone off between the hummocks and over floes, with a surface of nothing but slush and water. Had the surface been good I should no doubt have overtaken Master Bruin, but he had too long a start in the slushy snow. "A dismal, dispiriting landscape--nothing but white and gray, No shadows--merely half-obliterated forms melting into the fog and slush. Everything is in a state of disintegration, and one's foothold gives way at every step. It is hard work for the poor snow-shoer who stamps along through the slush and fog after bear-tracks that wind in and out among the hummocks, or over them. The snow-shoes sink deep in, and the water often reaches up to the ankles, so that it is hard work to get them up or to force them forward; but without them one would be still worse off.