There were illuminations in our honor that night on board the Fram. The electric arc lamp was hoisted on the maintop, and the electric light for the first time shone forth over the ice masses of the Polar Sea. Torches had also been lit, and bonfires of oakum-ends and other combustibles were burning on several floes around the Fram and making a brilliant show. Sverdrup had, by-the-way, given orders that the electric light or a lantern should be hoisted on the maintop every night until he and the others had returned, for fear they might lose their way if the tracks should be obliterated by bad weather. It would then be very difficult to find the ship; but such a light can be seen a long distance over these plains, where by merely standing on a hummock one can easily get a view for many miles round. I was afraid that the dogs, if they got loose, would go back to the Fram, and I therefore got two steel lines made, to which short leashes were fastened a little distance apart, so that the dogs could be secured to these lines between two sticks or sledges. In spite of this, several of the dogs got loose; but, strange to say, they did not leave us, but remained with their comrades and us. There was, of course, a doleful howling round the tents the first night, and they disturbed our sleep to some extent. The next morning (Friday, March 1st) it took one of our comrades three hours to make the coffee, being unaccustomed to the apparatus. We then had a very nice breakfast together. Not before 11.30 A.M. did we get under way. Our five comrades accompanied us for an hour or two and then turned to get back to the Fram the same evening. "It was certainly a most cheerful good-bye," says the diary, "but it is always hard to part, even at 84°, and maybe there was a tearful eye or two." The last thing Sverdrup asked me when sitting on his sledge, just as we were about to part, was, if I thought I should go to the South Pole when I got home; for if so, he hoped I would wait till he arrived; and then he asked me to give his love to his wife and child. And so we proceeded, Johansen and I, but it was slow work for us alone with six sledges, which were impeded on their way by all sorts of obstacles and inequalities. Besides this, the ice became rougher, so that it was difficult to get on during the afternoon on account of the darkness, the days being still very short and the sun was not yet above the horizon. We therefore camped rather early.