126 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
good progress over the undulating, snow-bare surface on the Inlandice. 
We felt however more weak and tired than on the preceding days, 
and the effects of the rest and feeding seemed unfortunately to dis- 
appear very fast. 
The ice was bad on Sept. 3rd, and we had to cross one river-course 
after the other. These were not particularly deep, but hauling the sledge 
up even from a small grade almost proved too much for our strength, 
and we were soon so tired that we had to stop after only four hours’ 
sledging. 
The ice became worse, the nearer we got to Nordre Depot, and on 
Sept. 4th at 11 a.m. we had to give up hauling the sledge any further 
towards the island, and left it and the tent on the ice, while we walked 
unhampered towards the depot. We passed a lake, covered with new 
ice and surrounded by Inlandice, lying a couple of miles to the north 
of the islands. We landed on the northernmost island, as we did not 
know where the depot was to be found, and saw a large flock of 
ptarmigans sitting on the stones. We had left our gun behind, as it 
was too heavy to carry together with the provisions, which we hoped to 
find, and thus we lost this chance of securing game. 
The depot was found at last after nine hours’ search, and was in 
rather good condition. We found more food than we had expected to 
find after Tuostrup’s message at Mallemukfjeldet. 
Owing to various circumstances we had not got a list of the depots 
and their contents before leaving home, and we thought of course that 
the depots would be intact, as they were marked off on the chart, and 
that they would contain nearly what was stated by Тнозтвор, all the 
more as we understood that Косн had a hundred days’ provisions with 
him, when he went north searching for My ius-ERIcHSEN, and that he 
would thus have no reason to touch the food already deposited. И 
the depots were intact, as we believed them to be, we would have ample 
food for the remainder of the journey, and we consequently increased 
our ration to 34 kilo a day, after we had found the food at Nordre Depot. 
Passed Nordre Depot with our sledge on Sept. Эй, keeping as far 
away from the coast as possible, but never the less we got very hilly 
ice, over which we made but poor progress. The ice became very much 
better on Sept. 6th, and on Sept. 7th we came down from the floating 
Inlandice and found splendid going on the old floes and the melting 
ponds on its surface. 
We reached the depots on Hagen Island on Sept. 8th at 11,30, and 
finding it empty we decided to push on and try to reach the depot on 
Bjorneskerene. We came out on newly formed ice just south of Hagen 
Island and made very good progress over it. The ice, however, became 
very thin, when we arrived in the neighbourhood of Bjorneskærene, 
and we were compelled to camp on the ice, only half a mile from open 
water. 
