The South Pole (Complete Edition). Roald Amundsen

use of the hammer and anvil. If Rönne had plenty of sewing, Nödtvedt had no less forging — sledge-fittings, knives, pickaxes, bars and bolts, patent hooks by the hundred for dogs, chains, and so on to infinity. The clang and sparks of the anvil were going all day long till we were well into the Indian Ocean. And in the westerly belt the blacksmith’s lot was not an enviable one; it is not always easy to hit the nail on the head when one’s feet rest on so unstable a foundation as the Fram’s deck, nor is it altogether pleasant when the forge is filled with water several times a day.

      While we were fitting out for the voyage, the cry was constantly raised in certain quarters at home that the old Fram’s hull was in a shocking state. It was said to be in bad repair, to leak like a sieve — in fact, to be altogether rotten. It throws a curious light on these reports when we look at the voyages that the Fram has accomplished in the last two years. For twenty months out of twenty-four she has kept going in open sea, and that, too, in waters which make very serious demands on a vessel’s strength. She is just as good as when she sailed, and could easily do it all over again without any repairs. We who were on board all knew perfectly well before we sailed how groundless and foolish these cries about her “rottenness” were; we knew, too, that there is scarcely a wooden ship afloat on which it is not necessary to use the pumps now and then. When the engine was stopped, we found it was sufficient to take a ten minutes’ turn at the hand-pump every morning; that was all the “leaking” amounted to. Oh no! there was nothing wrong with the Fram’s hull. On the other hand, there might be a word or two to say about the rigging; if this was not all it should have been, the fault lay entirely with the plaguy considerations of our budget. On the foremast we had two squaresails; there ought to have been four. On the jib-boom there were two staysails; there was room enough for three, but the money would not run to it. In the Trades we tried to make up for the deficiency by rigging a studding-sail alongside the foresail and a sky-sail above the topsail. I will not assert that these improvised sails contributed to improve the vessel’s appearance, but they got her along, and that is a great deal more important. We made very fair progress southward during these September days, and before the month was half over we had come a good way into the tropical belt. No particularly tropical heat was felt, at any rate by us men; and as a rule the heat is not severely felt on board ship in open sea so long as the vessel is moving. On a sailing-ship, lying becalmed with the sun in the zenith, it might be warmer than one would wish; but in case of calms we had the engine to help us, so that there was always a little breeze — that is, on deck. Down below it was worse; sometimes “hoggishly mild,” as Beck used to put it. Our otherwise comfortable cabins had one fault; there were no portholes in the ship’s side, and therefore we could not get a draught; but most of us managed without shifting our quarters. Of the two saloons, the fore-saloon was decidedly preferable in warm weather; in a cold climate probably the reverse would be the case. We were able to secure a thorough draught of air forward through the alleyway leading to the forecastle; it was difficult to get a good circulation aft, where they also had the warm proximity of the engine. The engineers, of course, had the hottest place, but the ever-inventive Sundbeck devised a means of improving the ventilation of the engine-room, so that even there they were not so badly off under the circumstances.

      One often hears it asked, Which is to be preferred, severe heat or severe cold? It is not easy to give a definite answer; neither of the two is pleasant, and it must remain a matter of taste which is least so. On board ship no doubt most people will vote for heat, as, even if the days are rather distressing, one has the glorious nights to make up for them. A bitterly cold day is poorly compensated for by an even colder night.

      One decided advantage of a warm climate for men who have to be frequently in and out of their clothes and their bunks is the simplicity of costume which it allows. When you wear hardly anything it takes a very short time to dress.

      If we had been able to take the opinion of our dogs on their existence in the tropics, they would probably have answered as one dog: “Thanks, let us get back to rather cooler surroundings.” Their coats were not exactly calculated for a temperature of 90° in the shade, and the worst of it was that they could not change them. It is, by the way, a misunderstanding to suppose that these animals absolutely must have hard frost to be comfortable; on the contrary, they prefer to be nice and warm. Here in the tropics of course they had rather too much of a good thing, but they did not suffer from the heat. By stretching awnings over the whole ship we contrived that they should all be constantly in the shade, and so long as they were not directly exposed to the sun’s rays, there was no fear of anything going wrong. How well they came through it appears best from the fact that not one of them was on the sick-list on account of the heat. During the whole voyage only two deaths occurred from sickness — one was the case of a bitch that died after giving birth to eight pups — which might just as easily have caused her death under other conditions. What was the cause of death in the other case we were unable to find out; at any rate, it was not an infectious disease.

      One of our greatest fears was the possibility of an epidemic among the dogs, but thanks to the care with which they had been picked, there was never a sign of anything of the sort.

      In the neighbourhood of the Equator, between the north-east and the south-east trades, lies what is called the “belt of calms.” The position and extent of this belt vary somewhat with the season. If you are extremely lucky, it may happen that one trade-wind will practically take you over into the other; but, as a rule, this region will cause quite a serious delay to sailing-ships; either there are frequent calms, or shifting and unsteady winds. We arrived there at an unfavourable time of the year and lost the north-east trade as early as ten degrees north of the line. If we had had the calms we looked for, we could have got across with the help of the engine in a reasonably short time, but we saw very little sign of calms. As a rule, there was an obstinate south wind blowing, and it would not have taken very much of it to make the last few degrees of north latitude stiffer than we cared for.

      The delay was annoying enough, but we had another disappointment of a more serious kind, for, curiously enough, we never had a proper shower of rain. Generally in these latitudes one encounters extremely heavy downpours, which make it possible to collect water by the barrelful in a very short space of time. We had hoped in this way to increase our store of fresh water, which was not so large but that extreme economy had to be practised if we were to avoid running short. However, this hope failed us, practically speaking. We managed to catch a little water, but it was altogether insufficient, and the husbanding of our supply had to be enforced in future with authority. The dogs required their daily ration, and they got it — measured out to a hair’s-breadth. Our own consumption was limited to what was strictly necessary; soups were banished from the bill of fare, they used too much of the precious fluid; washing in fresh water was forbidden. It must not be supposed from this that we had no opportunity of washing. We had a plentiful supply of soap, which lathered just as well in salt water as in fresh, and was thus capable of keeping ourselves and our clothes as clean as before. If for a time we had felt a certain anxiety about our water-supply, these fears were banished comparatively quickly, as the reserve we had taken in the long-boat on deck lasted an incredibly long time, almost twice as long as we had dared to hope, and this saved the situation, or very nearly so. If the worst came to the worst, we should be obliged to call at one of the numerous groups of islands that would lie in our route later on.

      For over six weeks the dogs had now been chained up in the places assigned to them when they came on board. In the course of that time most of them had become so tame and tractable that we thought we might soon let them loose. This would be a welcome change for them, and, what was more important, it would give them an opportunity for exercise. To tell the truth, we also expected some amusement from it; there would certainly be a proper shindy when all this pack got loose. But before we gave them their liberty we were obliged to disarm them, otherwise the inevitable free fight would be liable to result in one or more of them being left on the battle-field, and we could not afford that. Every one of them was provided with a strong muzzle; then we let them loose and waited to see what would happen. At first nothing at all happened; it looked as if they had abandoned once for all the thought of ever moving from the spot they had occupied so long At last a solitary individual had the bright idea of attempting a walk along the deck. But he should not have done so; it was dangerous to move about here. The unaccustomed sight of a loose dog at once aroused his nearest neighbours.