THE FIRST DEPOT 219 



cases were broken up and gave a certain number of 

 marks, but not nearly enough. Then our eyes fell upon 

 a bundle of dried fish lying on one of the sledges, and 

 oui' marking pegs were found. I should like to know 

 whether any road has been marked out with dried fish 

 before; I doubt it. Immediately on our arrival in 

 lat. 80 at eleven in the morning we began to erect the 

 depot. It was made quite solid, and was 12 feet high. 

 The going here in 80 was quite different from what we 

 had had all the rest of the way. Deep, loose snow every- 

 where gave us the impression that it must have fallen 

 in perfectly still weather. Generally when we passed 

 by here but not always we found this loose snow. 



When the depot was finished and had been photo- 

 graphed, we threw ourselves on the sledges and began 

 the homeward journey. It was quite a treat to sit and 

 be drawn along, a thing that otherwise never happened. 

 Prestrud sat with me. Hanssen drove first, but as he 

 now had the old track to follow, he wanted no one 

 in front. On the last sledge we had the marking pegs. 

 Prestrud kept an eye on the sledge-meter, and sang out 

 at every half -kilometre, while at the same time I stuck 

 a dried fish into the snow. This method of marking the 

 route proved a brilliant one. Not only did the dried 

 fish show us the right way on several occasions, but they 

 also came in very useful on the next journey, when we 

 returned with starving dogs. That day we covered 

 forty-three miles. We did not get to bed till one o'clock 



