"Wednesday, June 12th. This is getting worse and worse. Yesterday we did nothing, hardly advanced more than a mile. Wretched snow, uneven ice, lanes, and villanous weather stopped us. There was certainly a crust on the snow, on which the sledges ran well when they were on it; but when they broke through--and they did it constantly--they stood immovable. This crust, too, was bad for the dogs, poor things! They sank through it into the deep snow between the irregularities, and it was like swimming through slush for them. But all the same we made way. Lanes stopped us, it is true, but we cleared them somehow. Over one of them, the last, which looked nasty, we got by making a bridge of small floes, which we guided to the narrowest place. But then a shameless storm of wet snow, or, more correctly, sleet, with immense flakes, set in, and the wind increased. We could not see our way in this labyrinth of lanes and hummocks, and were as soaked as ducked crows, as we say. The going was impossible, and the sledges as good as immovable in the wet snow, which was soon deep enough to cling to our 'ski' underneath in great lumps, and prevent them from running. There was hardly any choice but to find a camping-ground as soon as possible, for to force one's way along in such weather and on such snow, and make no progress, was of little use. We found a good camping-ground and pitched our tent after only four hours' march, and went without our dinner to make up. "Here we are, then, hardly knowing what to do next. What the going is like outside I do not know yet, but probably not much better than yesterday, and whether we ought to push on the little we can, or go out and try to capture a seal, I cannot decide. The worst of it is that there do not seem to be many seals in the ice where we now are. We have seen none the last few days. Perhaps it is too thick and compact for them (?). The ice here is strikingly different in character from that we have been travelling over of late. It is considerably more uneven, for one thing, with mounds and somewhat old ridges--among them some very large ones. Nor does it look so very old--in general, I should say, of last winter's formation, though there are occasional old floes in between. They appear to have been near land, as clay and earthy matter are frequently to be seen, particularly in the newly formed ridges. "Johansen, who has gone out, says the same water-sky is to be seen in the south. Why is it we cannot reach it? But there it is, all the same, an alluring goal for us to make for, even if we do not reach it very soon. We see it again and again, looking so blue and beautiful; for us it is the color of hope.