On May 29th Dietrichson, Omdal and I, by a circuitous route, were able to reach the N 24 with our canvas canoe and sledge. We must get the remaining gasoline and provisions. Our only hope of reaching Spitzbergen lay in salvaging this fuel from the N 24. We cut out one of the empty tanks, filled it from one of the fresh ones, loaded it in our canoe, put the canoe on the sledge and started back. And now we found that a large lead had opened up behind us, over which we were barely able to get across ourselves, so we had to leave the tank and supplies on the further side over night. The next day the lead had closed again and Dietrichson and Omdal succeeded in getting the gasoline over. The light sledge got slightly broken among the rough hummocks, which was an additional catastrophe, in view of the probability of having to walk to Greenland. We now had 245 liters additional fuel,--1,500 liters altogether,--or a margin of 300 liters on which to make Spitzbergen, provided we could get off immediately. On May 31st an inventory of our provisions showed that we had on hand: 285 half-pound cakes of pemmican, 300 cakes of chocolate, 3 ordinary cracker-tins of oatmeal biscuits, 3 20-lb. sacks of powdered milk, 3 sausages, 12 lbs. each, 42 condensed milk tins of Horlick’s Malted Milk Tablets, 25 liters of kerosene for our Primus stove (we later used motor fuel for cooking). Our observations for Latitude and Longitude this day showed our position to be 87.32 N. and 7.30 W. It meant that the whole pack had been steadily drifting southeast since our arrival. It was at least some consolation to know that we were slowly but surely drifting south, where we knew there was game. How we should have liked to have had that seal we saw the first day! We had seen no life of any description since, neither in the water nor in the air, not even a track on the snow to show that there was another living thing in these latitudes but ourselves. It is a land of misery and death. With a view to working the longest possible time in an attempt to get the N 25 clear, and at the same time have sufficient provisions left with which to reach Greenland, Captain Amundsen felt that it was necessary to cut down our daily rations to 300 grams per man, or just one half pound per man per day. This amounted to one-half the ration that Peary fed his dogs a day on his journey to the Pole. By thus reducing our rations, he figured that our provisions would last for two months longer.