The expedition to King Edward VII.  Land, under Lieutenant Prestrud, has achieved excellent results.  Scott’s discovery was confirmed, and the examination of the Bay of Whales and the Ice Barrier, which the party carried out, is of great interest.  Good geological collections have been obtained from King Edward VII.  Land and South Victoria Land.

The Fram arrived at the Bay of Whales on January 9, having been delayed in the “Roaring Forties " by easterly winds.

On January 16 the Japanese expedition arrived at the Bay of Whales, and landed on the Barrier near our winter quarters.

We left the Bay of Whales on January 30.  We had a long voyage on account of contrary wind.

We are all in the best of health.

Roald Amundsen.

Hobart,

March 8, 1912.

Introduction

When the explorer comes home victorious, everyone goes out to cheer him.  We are all proud of his achievement —­ proud on behalf of the nation and of humanity.  We think it is a new feather in our cap, and one we have come by cheaply.

How many of those who join in the cheering were there when the expedition was fitting out, when it was short of bare necessities, when support and assistance were most urgently wanted?  Was there then any race to be first?  At such a time the leader has usually found himself almost alone; too often he has had to confess that his greatest difficulties were those he had to overcome at home before he could set sail.  So it was with Columbus, and so it has been with many since his time.

So it was, too, with Roald Amundsen —­ not only the first time, when he sailed in the Gjoa with the double object of discovering the Magnetic North Pole and of making the North-West Passage, but this time again, when in 1910 he left the fjord on his great expedition in the Fram, to drift right across the North Polar Sea.  What anxieties that man has gone through, which might have been spared him if there had been more appreciation on the part of those who had it in their power to make things easier!  And Amundsen had then shown what stuff he was made of:  both the great objects of the Gjoa’s expedition were achieved.  He has always reached the goal he has aimed at, this man who sailed his little yacht over the whole Arctic Ocean, round the north of America, on the course that had been sought in vain for four hundred years.  If he staked his life and abilities, would it not have been natural if we had been proud of having such a man to support?

But was it so?

For a long time he struggled to complete his equipment.  Money was still lacking, and little interest was shown in him and his work, outside the few who have always helped so far as was in their power.  He himself gave everything he possessed in the world.  But this time, as last, he nevertheless had to put to sea loaded with anxieties and debts, and, as before, he sailed out quietly on a summer night.