CHAPTER XV 
LAYING THE DEPOTS 
Mackintosh's account of the depot-laying journeys undertaken 
by his parties in the summer of 1915-16 unfortunately is not 
available. The leader of the parties kept a diary, but he had 
the book with him when he was lost on the sea-ice in the follow- 
ing winter. The narrative of the journeys has been compiled 
from the notes kept by Joyce, Richards, and other members 
of the parties, and I may say here that it is a record of dogged 
endeavour in the face of great difficulties and serious dangers. 
It is always easy to be wise after the event, and one may realize 
now that the use of the dogs, untrained and soft from ship- 
board inactivity, on the comparatively short journey under- 
taken immediately after the landing in 1915 was a mistake. 
The result was the loss of nearly all the dogs before the longer 
and more important journeys of 1915-16 were undertaken. 
The men were sledging almost continuously during a period of 
six months ; they sufiered from frost-bite, scurvy, snow-blind- 
ness, and the utter weariness of overtaxed bodies. But they 
placed the depots in the required positions, and if the Weddell 
Sea party had been able to make the crossing of the Antarctic 
continent, the stores and fuel would have been waiting for us 
where we expected to find them. 
The position on October 9 was that the nine men at Hut 
Point had with them the stores required for the depots and for 
their own maintenance throughout the summer. The remaining 
dogs were at Cape Evans with Gaze, who had a sore heel and 
had been replaced temporarily by Stevens in the sledging party. 
A small quantity of stores had been conveyed already to Safety 
Camp on the edge of the Barrier beyond Hut Point, Mackin- 
tosh intended to form a large depot ofE Minna Bluff, seventy 
miles out from Hut Point. This would necessitate several trips 
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