AT THE MAIN DEPOT 159 



From a little ridge we crossed immediately after start- 

 ing, Bjaaland thought he could see the depot down on 

 the Barrier, and it was not very long before we came in 

 sight of Mount Betty and our way up. And now we 

 could make sure with the glasses that it really was our 

 depot that we saw — the same that Bjaaland thought he 

 had seen before. We therefore set our course straight 

 for it, and in a few minutes we were once more on the 

 Barrier — January 6, 11 p.m. — after a stay of fifty-one 

 days on land. It was on November 17 that we had 

 begun the ascent. 



We reached the depot, and found everything in 

 order. The heat here must have been very powerful; 

 our lofty, solid depot was melted by the sun into a 

 rather low mound of snow. The pemmican rations 

 that had been exposed to the direct action of the sun's 

 rays had assumed the strangest forms, and, of course, 

 they had become rancid. We got the sledges ready at 

 once, taking all the provisions out of the depot and 

 loading them. We left behind some of the old clothes 

 we had been wearing all the way from here to the Pole 

 and back. When we had completed all this repacking 

 and had everything ready, two of us went over to 

 Mount Betty, and collected as many different speci- 

 mens of rock as we could lay our hands on. At the 

 same time we built a great cairn, and left there a can 

 of 17 litres of paraffin, two packets of matches — contain- 

 ing twenty boxes — and an account of our expedition. 



