"To-day, [28] for the first time on the whole of this journey, we have dealt out rations for breakfast, both of butter, 1 2/3 ounces, and aleuronate bread, 6 2/3 ounces. We must keep to weights in order to be certain the provisions will last out, and I shall take stock properly of what we have left before we go farther. "Happiness is, indeed, short-lived. The sun has gone again, the sky is overcast, and snowflakes are beginning to fall. "Wednesday, June 5th. Still at the same spot, but it is to be hoped it will not be long before we are able to get off. The weather was fine yesterday, after all, and so summer-like to sit out and work and bask in the sun; and then to look out over the water and the ice, with the glittering waves and snow! "Yesterday we shot our first game. It was an ivory gull (Larus eberneus), which went flying over the tent. There were other gulls here, yesterday, too, and we saw as many as four at once; but they kept at a distance. I went after them once and missed my mark. One cartridge wasted; this must not be repeated. If we had taken the trouble we could easily have got more gulls; but they are too small game, and it is also too early to use up our ammunition. In the pool here I saw a seal, and Johansen saw one too. We have both seen and heard narwhals. There is life enough here, and if the kayaks were in order, and we could row out on the water, I have no doubt we could get something. However, it is not necessary yet. We have provisions enough at present, and it is better to employ the time in getting on, on account of the dogs, though it would be well if we could get some big game, and not kill any more of them until our ice journey is over and we take to the kayaks for good. Yesterday we had to kill 'Klapperslangen.' He gave twenty-five rations, which will last the six remaining dogs four days. The slaughtering was now entirely Johansen's business; he had achieved such celerity that with a single thrust of my long Lapp knife he made an end of the animal, so that it had no time to utter a sound, and after a few minutes, with the help of the knife and our little axe, he had divided the animal into suitable doles. As I mentioned before, we left the skin and hair on; the former was carefully eaten up, and the only thing left after the dogs' meal was, as a rule, a tuft of hair here and there on the ice, some claws, and, perhaps, a well-gnawed cranium, the hard skull being too much for them. "They are beginning to be pretty well starved now. Yesterday 'Lilleræven' ate up the toe-strap (the reindeer-skin which is placed under the foot to prevent the snow from balling), and a little of the wood of Johansen's snowshoes, which the dog had pulled down on to the ice. The late 'Kvik' ate up her sail-cloth harness, and I am not so sure these others do not indulge in a fragment of canvas now and then.