We also took with us a considerable quantity of butter (86 pounds) which had been well worked on board in order to get out all superfluous water. By this means not only was considerable weight saved, but the butter did not become so hard in the cold. On the whole, it must be said that our menus included considerable variety, and we were never subjected to that sameness of food which former sledge expeditions have complained so much of. Finally, we always had ravenous appetites, and always thought our meals as delicious as they could be. Our medicine-chest consisted, on this occasion, of a little bag, containing, naturally, only the most absolutely necessary drugs, etc. Some splints and some ligatures, and plaster-of-Paris bandages, for possible broken legs and arms; aperient pills and laudanum for derangements of the stomach, which were never required; chloroform in case of an amputation, for example, from frost-bite; a couple of small glasses of cocaine in solution for snow-blindness (also unused); drops for toothache, carbolic acid, iodoform gauze, a couple of curved needles, and some silk for sewing up wounds; a scalpel, two artery tweezers (also for amputations), and a few other sundries. Happily our medicines were hardly ever required, except that the ligatures and bandages came in very handily the following winter as wicks for our train-oil lamps. Still better for this purpose, however, is Nicolaysen's plaster, of which we had taken a supply for possible broken collar-bones. The layer of wax we scraped carefully off and found it most satisfactory for calking our leaky kayaks. LIST OF THE EQUIPMENT Sledge No. 1 (with Nansen's Kayak)