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Lieutenant Campbell, the leader of the eastern party, which was to explore King Edward VII. Land, came on board first, and paid Nilsen a visit. He brought the news that they had not been able to reach land, and were now on their way back to McMurdo Sound. From thence it was their intention to go to Cape North and explore the land there.
They circled once or twice round the mast-heads, and then made for the English coast. I think this episode led to our taking a few carrier pigeons with us when we left Christiansand; Lieutenant Nilsen, as a former owner of pigeons, was to take charge of them. Then a nice house was made for them, and the pigeons lived happily in their new abode on the top of the whale-boat amidships.
It was on January 25, 1912, that we came into Framheim after our successful journey to the Pole. This was not the only time our calculations proved correct; Captain Nilsen showed himself to be a veritable magician in this way. While I contented myself with reckoning dates, he did not hesitate to go into hours.
A long procession of cases of provisions made its way unceasingly from the basement of the Historical Museum down into the roomy hold of the Fram, where Lieutenant Nilsen and the three Nordlanders were ready to receive them. This process was not an altogether simple one; on the contrary, it was a very serious affair.
Of late Hardy had hired a flat-bottomed boat, and a man called Nils Nilsen rowed or punted it with a pole, as on the Thames, or he went ashore on the towing-path and pulled it up the river with a towing rope, while a minnow was cast from the boat.
On the next day we began unloading the ship. We had brought with us material for house-building as well as equipment and provisions for nine men for several years. We divided into two groups, the ship's group and the land group. The first was composed of the commander of the ship, Captain Nilsen, and the nine men who were to stay on board to take the Fram out of the ice and to Buenos Aires.
However, Nilsen and his assistants accomplished their task with brilliant success. Among the hundreds of cases there was not one that was misplaced; not one that was stowed so that it could not instantly be brought into the light of day. While the provisioning was going on, the rest of the equipment was also being taken on board.
In the distance, and only visible from time to time through the driving mists, we saw Mount Thorvald Nilsen, with peaks rising to 15,000 feet. We could only see those parts of them that lay nearest to us. It took us three days to get over the Devil's Glacier, as the weather was unusually misty. On December 1 we left the glacier in high spirits. It was cut up by innumerable crevasses and holes.
For that matter, you're welcome to tell her so from me. And I haven't been accustomed either, even in my humble position, to send clothes to the wash not patched or mended; and I can tell you that both Mother Nilsen next door and the people in this house have wondered to see the things that a person, who calls herself a chandler's wife, lets her husband and children wear!
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