"We began our march at 8 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, and halted here at 5 o'clock this morning. [30] Later on in the forenoon the wind went over to the northeast and the temperature fell. The snow froze hard, and eventually the going became pretty good. The crust on the snow bore the dogs up, and also the sledges to a certain extent, and we looked forward to good going on the following day; but in this we were doomed to disappointment. No sooner had we got inside the tent than it began to snow, and kept briskly at it the whole day while we slept; and yesterday evening, when we turned out to get breakfast ready and start off, it was still snowing, and deep, loose snow covered everything--a state of things bad beyond description. There was no sense in going on, and we decided to wait and see how matters would turn out. Meanwhile we were hungry, but a full breakfast we could not afford, so I prepared a small portion of fish soup, and we returned to the bag again--Johansen to sleep on, I to rereckon all my observations from the time we left the Fram, and see if some error might not explain the mystery why no land was yet to be found. The sun had partially appeared, and I tried, though in vain, to take an observation. I stood waiting for more than an hour with the theodolite up, but the sun went in again and remained out of sight. I have calculated and calculated and thought and thought, but can find no mistake of any importance, and the whole thing is a riddle to me. I am beginning seriously to doubt that we may be too far west, after all. I simply cannot conceive that we are too far east; for in such a case we cannot, at any rate, be more than 5° farther east than our observations [31] make us. Supposing, for instance, that our watches have gone too fast, 'Johannsen' [32] cannot, at all events, have gained more than double its previous escapement. I have assumed an escapement of five seconds; but supposing that the escapement has been ten seconds, this does not make more difference than 6' 40'' in eighty days (the time from our departure from the Fram till the last observation)--that is, 1° 40' farther east than we ought to be. Assuming, too, that I have calculated our days' marches at too great length, in the days between April 8th and 13th, and that instead of 36 English geographical miles, or, rather, more than 40 statute miles, we have only gone 24 English geographical miles, or 28 statute miles (less we cannot possibly have gone), we should then have been in 89° E. instead of 86° E, on the 13th, as we supposed. That is 3° farther east, or with the figures above, let us say together 5° farther east--i.e., we now instead of being in longitude 61° E. should be in 66° E., [33] or about 70 miles from Cape Fligely. But it seems to me we ought to see land south of us just the same. Wilczek Land cannot be so low and trend suddenly so far to the south, when Cape Budapest is said to lie in about 61° E. and 82° N., and should thus