"Sunday, June 16th. Yesterday was as bad as it well could be--the surface enough to make one desperate and the ice rough. I very much doubted whether the wisest thing would not be to kill the dogs and keep them as food for ourselves, and try to make our way on as best we could without them. In that manner we should have provender for fifteen or perhaps twenty days longer, and should be able to make some progress at the same time. There does not seem much to be done in that line, however, and perhaps the right thing to do is to wait. But, on the other hand, perhaps, it is not far to land or open water, or, at any rate, to slack ice, and then every mile we can make southward is of importance. I have therefore come to the conclusion that we must use the dogs to get on with as best we can--perhaps there will be a change before we expect it; if nothing else, then, perhaps, some better ice, like that we had before. Meanwhile we were obliged to kill two dogs yesterday. 'Lilleræven' could hardly go when we started; his legs seemed to be quite paralyzed, and he fell down and could not get up again. After I had dragged him and the sledge for a time and had tried in vain to make him go, I had to put him on the load, and when we came to some hummocks where there was shelter from the north wind, Johansen killed him, while I went forward to find a way. Meanwhile my other dog, 'Storræven,' was in almost as bad a plight. Haul he could not, and the difficulty was to make him go on so that he was not dragged with the sledge. He went a little way, stumbling and falling, and being helped up repeatedly; but soon he was just as bad as 'Lilleræven' had been, lagged behind, got the traces under the sledge runners, and was dragged with it. As I thought I had enough to do in hauling the sledge, I let him go, in the hope that he would, at any rate, follow us. He did so for a little while, but then stopped behind, and Johansen was compelled to fetch him and put him on his load, and when we camped he was killed too.