"Saturday, April 13th. We have traversed nothing but good ice for three days. If this goes on, the return journey will be quicker than I thought. I do not understand this sudden change in the nature of the ice. Can it be that we are travelling in the same direction with the trend of the ridges and irregularities, so that now we go along between them instead of having to make our way over them? The lanes we have come across seem all to point to this; they follow our course pretty closely. We had the misfortune yesterday to let our watches run down; the time between our getting into the bag on the previous night and encamping yesterday was too long. Of course we wound them up again, but the only thing I can now do to find Greenwich mean time is take a time-observation and an observation for latitude, and then estimate the approximate distance from our turning-point on April 8th, when I took the last observation for longitude. By this means the error will hardly be great. "I conclude that we have not gone less than 14 miles a day on an average the last three days, and have consequently advanced 40 or more miles in a direction S. 22° W. (magnetic). When we stopped here yesterday 'Barbara' was killed. These slaughterings are not very pleasant episodes. Clear weather; at 6.30 this morning -22° Fahr. (-30° C.); wind south (6 to 9 feet). "April 14th. Easter-day. We were unfortunate with lanes yesterday, and they forced us considerably out of our course. We were stopped at last by a particularly awkward one, and after I had gone alongside it to find a crossing for some distance without success, I thought we had better, in the circumstances, pitch our tent and have a festive Easter-eve. In addition, I wished to reckon out our latitude, longitude, our observation for time, and our variation; it was a question of getting the right time again as quickly as possible. The tent up, and Johansen attending to the dogs, I crept into the bag; but lying thawing in this frozen receptacle, with frozen clothes and shoes, and simultaneously working out an observation and looking up logarithms, with tender, frost-bitten fingers, is not pleasurable, even if the temperature be only -22° Fahr. It is slow work, and Easter-day has had to be devoted to the rest of the calculation, so that we shall not get off before this evening. Meanwhile we had a festive Easter-eve and regaled ourselves with the following delicacies: hot whey and water, fish au gratin, stewed red whortleberries, and lime-juice grog (i.e., lime-juice tablets and a little sugar dissolved in hot water). Simply a splendid dinner; and, having feasted our fill, we at last, at 2 o'clock, crept in under the cover.