Now, in some way or other the second in command found out that the circulation of air in the pigeon-house was faulty; to remedy this defect, he one day set the door a little ajar. Air certainly got into the house, but the pigeons came out. A joker, on discovering that the birds had flown, wrote up "To Let" in big letters on the wall of the pigeon-house. The second in command was not in a very gentle frame of mind that day. As far as I know, this escape took place in the Channel. The pigeons found their way home to Norway. The Bay of Biscay has a bad name among seamen, and it fully deserves it; that tempestuous corner of the sea conceals for ever in its depths so many a stout ship and her crew. We for our part, however, had good hopes of escaping unharmed, considering the time of year, and our hopes were fulfilled. We had better luck than we dared to anticipate. Our stubborn opponent, the south-west wind, got tired at last of trying to stop our progress; it was no use. We went slowly, it was true, but still we got along. Of the meteorological lessons of our youth, we especially recalled at that moment the frequent northerly winds off the coast of Portugal, and as a pleasant surprise we already had them far up in the Bay. This was an agreeable change after all our close-hauled tacking in the Channel. The north wind held almost as bravely as the south-west had done before, and at what was to our ideas quite a respectable rate, we went southward day after day towards the fine-weather zone, where we could be sure of a fair wind, and where a sailor's life is, as a rule, a pleasant one. For that matter, as far as seamanship was concerned, our work had gone on smoothly enough, even during these first difficult weeks. There were always willing and practised hands enough for what was wanted, even though the work to be done was frequently of a 39 not very pleasant kind. Take washing decks, for instance. Every seaman will have something to say about what this is like on board ships that carry live animals, especially when these are carried on deck, in the way of all work that has to be done. I have always held the opinion that a Polar ship ought not, any more than any other vessel, to be a wholesale establishment for dirt and filth, however many dogs there may be on board. On the contrary, I should say that on voyages of this kind it is more than ever vitally necessary to keep one's surroundings as clean and sweet as possible. The important thing is to get rid of anything that may have a demoralizing and depressing effect. The influence of uncleanliness in this way is so well known that it is needless to preach about it here. My views were shared by everyone on board the Fram, and everything was done to act in accordance with them, in spite of what may be considered great difficulties. Twice a day the whole deck was thoroughly washed down, besides all the extra turns at odd times with bucket and scrubber. At least once a week the whole of the loose deck was taken up, and each separate part of it thor- oughly washed, until it was as clean as when it was laid down at Christiansand. This was a labour that required great patience and perseverance on the part of those who had to perform it, but I never saw any shortcomings. "Let's just see and get it clean," they said. At night, when it was not always easy to see what one was doing, it might often happen that one heard some more or less heated exclamations from those who had to handle coils of rope in working the ship. I need not hint more explicitly at the cause of them, if it is remembered that there were dogs lying about everywhere, who had eaten and drunk well in the course of the day. But after a time the oaths gave way to jokes. There is nothing in the world that custom does not help us to get over. It is the universal practice on board ship to divide the day and night into watches of four hours; the two watches into which the crew is divided relieve each other every four hours. But on vessels that sail to the Arctic Ocean, it is customary to have watches of six hours. We adopted the latter plan, which, on its being put to the vote, proved to have a compact majority in its favour. By this arrangement of watches we only had to turn out twice in the course of twenty-four hours, and the watch below had had a proper sleep whenever it turned out. If one has to eat, smoke, and perhaps chat a little during four hours' watch below, it does not leave much time for sleeping; and if there should be a call for all hands on deck, it means no sleep at all. To cope with the work of the engine-room, we had from the beginning the two engineers, Sundbeck and Nodtvedt; they took watch and watch, four hours each. When the motor was in use for a long time continuously, this was a rather severe duty, and on the whole it was just as well to have a man in reserve. I therefore decided to have a third man trained as reserve engineer. Kristensen applied for this post, and it may be said in his praise that he accomplished the change remarkably well. Thorough deck-hand as he was, there might have been reason to fear that he would repent of the transfer; but no, he quickly became life and soul an engineer. This did not prevent our seeing him on deck again many a time during the passage through the west wind belt, when there was need of a good man during a gale. The motor, which during the Atlantic cruise had been a constant source of uneasiness and anxiety, regained our entire confidence under Sundbeck's capable command; it hummed so that it was a pleasure to hear it. To judge from the sound of the engine-room, one would have thought the Fram was moving through the water with the speed of a torpedo-boat. If this was not the case, the en-gine was not to blame; possibly, the screw had a share of it. The latter ought probably to have been somewhat larger, though experts are not agreed about this; in any case, there was something radically wrong with our propeller. Whenever there was a little seaway, it was apt to work loose in the brasses. This disadvantage is of very common occurrence in vessels which have to be fitted with lifting propellers on account of the ice, and we did not escape it. The only remedy was to lift the whole propeller-frame and renew the brasses -- an extremely difficult work when it had to be done in the open sea and on as lively a ship as the Fram. Day by day we had the satisfaction of seeing how the dogs found themselves more and more at home on board. Perhaps, even among ourselves, there were one or two who had felt some doubt at first of what the solution of the dog question would be, but in any case all such doubts were soon swept away. Even at an early stage of the voyage we had every reason to hope that we should land our animals safe and sound. What we had to see to in the first place was to let them have as much and as good food as circumstances permitted. As already mentioned, we had provided ourselves with dried fish for their consumption. Eskimo dogs do not suffer very greatly from daintiness, but an exclusive diet of dried fish would seem rather monotonous in the long-run, even to their appetites, and a certain addition of fatty substances was necessary, otherwise we should have some trouble with them. We had on board several great barrels of tallow or fat, but our store was not so large that we did not have to economize. In order to make the supply of fat last, and at the same time to induce our boarders to take as much dried fish as possible, we invented a mixture which was called by a sailor's term -- daenge. This must not be confused with "thrashing,"[4] which was also served out liberally from time to time, but the daenge was more in demand. It consisted of a mixture of chopped-up fish, tallow, and maize-meal, all boiled together into a sort of porridge. This dish was served three times a week, and the dogs were simply mad for it. They very soon learned to keep count of the days when this mess was to be expected, and as soon as they heard the rattling of the tin dishes in which the separate portions were carried round, they set up such a noise that it was impossible to hear oneself speak. Both the preparation and the serving out of this extra ration were at times rather troublesome, but it was well worth it. It is quite certain that our complement of dogs would have made a poor show on arrival at the Bay of Whales if we had shrunk from the trouble. 40 The dried fish was not nearly so popular as the daenge, but to make up for that there was plenty of it. Not that the dogs themselves ever thought they could have enough; indeed, they were always stealing from their neighbours, perhaps more for the sake of the sport than for anything else. In any case, as a sport it was extremely popular, and it took many a good hiding to get the rascals to understand that it could not be allowed. I am afraid, though, that they kept up their thieving even after they knew very well that it was wrong; the habit was too old to be corrected. Another habit, and a very bad one, that these Eskimo dogs have fallen into in the course of ages, and of which we tried to break them, at all events during the sea voyage, is their tendency to hold howling concerts. What the real meaning of these performances may be, whether they are a pastime, or an expression of gratification or the reverse, we could never decide to our satisfaction. They began suddenly and without warning. The whole pack might be lying perfectly still and quiet, when a single individual, who for that occasion had taken upon himself the part of leader of the chorus, would set up a long, blood-curdling yowl. If they were left to themselves, it was not long before the whole pack joined in, and this infernal din was kept going at full steam for two or three minutes. The only amusing thing about the entertainment was its conclusion. They all stopped short at the same instant, just as a well-trained chorus
