and push on the best we could. And with that resolution I returned to the sledges. Neither of us, however, had a very firm belief that we should get much farther, and therefore all the more elated did we become as our advance proved by degrees to be tolerably easy, in spite of our exhausted dogs. "While we were making our way during the morning between some lanes I suddenly saw a black object come rushing through the air; it was a black guillemot (Uria grylle), and it circled round us several times. Not long afterwards I heard a curious noise in a southwesterly direction--something like the sound made by a goat's horn when blown on; I heard it many times, and Johansen also remarked it, but I could not make out what it was. An animal, at all events, it must be, as human beings are hardly likely to be near us here. [25] A little while later a fulmar came sailing towards us, and flew round and round just over our heads. I got out my gun, but before I had a cartridge in the bird had gone again. It is beginning to grow lively here; it is cheering to see so much life, and gives one the feeling that one is approaching land and kindlier regions. Later on I saw a seal on the ice; it was a little ringed seal, which it would have been a satisfaction to capture; but before I had quite made out which it was it had disappeared into the water. "At 10 o'clock we had dinner, which we shall no longer eat in the bag, in order to save time. We have also decided to shorten our marches to eight hours or so in the day on account of the dogs. At 11 o'clock, after dinner, we started off again, and at three stopped and camped. I should imagine we went 7 miles yesterday, or let me say between 12 and 15 during the last two days, the direction being about southwest--every little counts. "In front of us on the horizon we have a water-sky, or at any rate a reflection which is so sharply defined and remains so immovable that it must either be over open water or dark land; our course just bears on it. It is a good way off, and the water it is over can hardly be of small extent; I cannot help thinking that it must be under land. May it be so! But between us, to judge by the sky, there seem to be plenty of lanes. "The ice is still the same nowadays, barely of the previous winter's formation, where it is impossible to find any suitable for cooking. It seems to me that it is here, if possible, thinner than ever, with a thickness of from 2 to 3 feet. The reason of this I am still at a loss to explain.