we were greatly surprised at the aspect of our surroundings. Last time -- on November 20 -- we had seen mountains on the west and north, but a long way off: Now the whole of that part of the horizon seemed to be filled with colossal mountain masses, which were right over us. What in the world was the meaning of this? Was it witchcraft? I am sure I began to think so for a moment. I would readily have taken my most solemn oath that I had never seen that landscape before in my life. We had now gone the full distance, and according to the beacons we had passed, we ought to be on the spot. This was very strange; in the direction in which I had taken the bearing of our ascent, we now only saw the side of a perfectly unknown mountain, sticking up from the plain. There could be absolutely no way down in that precipitous wall. Only on the north-west did the ground give the impression of allowing a descent; there a natural depression seemed to be formed, running down towards the Barrier, which we could see far, far away.
We halted and discussed the situation. "Hullo!" Hanssen suddenly exclaimed,
"somebody has been here before." -- "Yes," broke in Wisting; "I'm hanged if that isn't my broken ski that I stuck up by the depot." So it was Wisting's broken ski that brought us out of this unpleasant situation. It was a good thing he put it there
-- very thoughtful, in any case. I now examined the place with the glasses, and by the side of a snow mound, which proved to be our depot, but might easily have escaped our notice, we could see the ski sticking up out of the snow. We cheerfully set our course for the spot, but did not reach it until we had gone three miles.
There was rejoicing in our little band when we arrived and saw that what we had considered the most important point of our homeward journey had been reached.
It was not so much for the sake of the food it contained that we considered it so necessary to find this spot, as for discovering the way down to the Barrier again.
And now that we stood there, we recognized this necessity more than ever. For although we now knew, from our bearings, exactly where the descent lay, we could see nothing of it at all. The plateau there seemed to go right up to the mountain, without any opening towards the lower ground beyond; and yet the compass told us that such an opening must exist, and would take us down. The mountain, on which we had thus walked all day on the outward journey, without knowing anything of it, was Mount Fridtjof Nansen. Yes, the difference in the light made a surprising alteration in the appearance of things.
The first thing we did on reaching the depot was to take out the dogs' carcasses that lay there and cut them into big lumps, that were divided among the dogs.
They looked rather surprised; they had not been accustomed to such rations. We threw three carcasses on to the sledges, so as to have a little extra food for them on the way down. The Butcher's was not a very friendly spot this time, either.
True, it was not the same awful weather as on our first visit, but it was blowing a fresh breeze with a temperature of -9.4º F., which, after the heat of the last few days, seemed to go to one's marrow, and did not invite us to stay longer than was absolutely necessary. Therefore, as soon as we had finished feeding the dogs and putting our sledges in order, we set out.
Although the ground had not given us the impression of sloping, we soon found out that it did so when we got under way. It was not only downhill, but the pace became so great that we had to stop and put brakes under the sledges. As we advanced, the apparently unbroken wall opened more and more, and showed us at last our old familiar ascent. There lay Mount Ole Engelstad, snowclad and cold, as we saw it the first time. As we rounded it we came on to the severe, steep slope, where, on the way south, I had so much admired the work done by my companions and the dogs that day. But now I had an even better opportunity of seeing how steep this ascent really had been. Many were the brakes we had to put on before we could reduce the speed to a moderate pace, but even so we came down rapidly, and soon the first part of the descent lay behind us. So as not to be exposed to possible gusts from the plain, we went round Mount Engelstad and camped under the lee of it, well content with the day's work. The snow lay here as on our first visit, deep and loose, and it was difficult to find anything like a good place for the tent. We could soon feel that we had descended a couple of thousand feet and come down among the mountains. It was still, absolutely still, and the sun broiled us as on a day of high summer at home. I thought, too, that I
could notice a difference in my breathing; it seemed to work much more easily and pleasantly -- perhaps it was only imagination.
At one o'clock on the following morning we were out again. The sight that met our eyes that morning, when we came out of the tent, was one of those that will always live in our memories. The tent stood in the narrow gap between Fridtjof Nansen and Ole Engelstad. The sun, which now stood in the south, was completely hidden by the latter mountain, and our camp was thus in the deepest shadow; but right against us on the other side the Nansen mountain raised its splendid ice-clad summit high towards heaven, gleaming and sparkling in the rays of the midnight sun. The shining white passed gradually, very gradually, into pale blue, then deeper and deeper blue, until the shadow swallowed it up.
But down below, right on the Heiberg Glacier, its ice-covered side was exposed -
- dark and solemn the mountain mass stood out. Mount Engelstad lay in shadow, but on its summit rested a beautiful light little cirrus cloud, red with an edge of gold. Down over its side the blocks of ice lay scattered pell-mell. And farther down on the east rose Don Pedro Christophersen, partly in shadow, partly gleaming in the sun -- a marvellously beautiful sight. And all was so still; one almost feared to disturb the incomparable splendour of the scene.
We now knew the ground well enough to be able to go straight ahead without any detours. The huge avalanches were more frequent than on the outward journey. One mass of snow after another plunged down; Don Pedro was getting rid of his winter coat. The going was precisely the same -- loose, fairly deep snow. We went quite easily over it, however, and it was all downhill. On the ridge where the descent to the glacier began we halted to make our preparations.
Brakes were put under the sledges, and our two ski-sticks were fastened together to make one strong one; we should have to be able to stop instantly if surprised by a crevasse as we were going. We ski-runners went in front. The going was ideal here on the steep slope, just enough loose snow to give one good steering on ski. We went whizzing down, and it was not many minutes before we were on the Heiberg Glacier. For the drivers it was not quite such plain sailing: they followed our tracks, but had to be extremely careful on the steep fall.
We camped that evening on the selfsame spot where we had had our tent on November 18, at about 3,100 feet above the sea. From here one could see the course of the Axel Heiberg Glacier right down to its junction with the Barrier. It looked fine and even, and we decided to follow it instead of climbing over the mountain, as we had done on the way south. Perhaps the distance would be
somewhat longer, but probably we should make a considerable saving of time.
We had now agreed upon a new arrangement of our time; the long spells of rest were becoming almost unbearable. Another very important side of the question was that, by a reasonable arrangement, we should be able to save a lot of time, and reach home several days sooner than we had reckoned. After a great deal of talk on one side and on the other, we agreed to arrange matters thus: we were to do our fifteen geographical miles, or twenty-eight kilometres, and then have a sleep of six hours, turn out again and do fifteen miles more, and so on. In this way we should accomplish a very good average distance on our day's march. We kept to this arrangement for the rest of the journey, and thus saved a good many days.
Our progress down the Heiberg Glacier did not encounter any obstructions; only at the transition from the glacier to the Barrier were there a few crevasses that had to be circumvented. At 7 a.m. on January 6 we halted at the angle of land that forms the entrance to the Heiberg Glacier, and thence extends northward.
We had not yet recognized any of the land we lay under, but that was quite natural, as we now saw it from the opposite side. We knew, though, that we were not far away from our main depot in 85º 5' S. On the afternoon of the same day we were off again.
From a little ridge we crossed immediately after starting, 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 specimens 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 -- containing twenty boxes -- and an account of our expedition. Possibly someone may find a use for these things in the future.
We had to kill Frithjof, one of Bjaaland's dogs, at this camp. He had latterly been showing marked signs of shortness of breath, and finally this became so painful to the animal that we decided to put an end to him. Thus brave Frithjof ended his career. On cutting him open it appeared that his lungs were quite shrivelled up; nevertheless, the remains disappeared pretty quickly into his companions'
stomachs. What they had lost in quantity did not apparently affect their quality.
Nigger, one of Hassel's dogs, had been destroyed on the way down from the plateau. We thus reached this point again with twelve dogs, as we had reckoned on doing, and left it with eleven. I see in my diary the following remark: "The dogs look just as well as when we left Framheim." On leaving the place a few hours later we had provisions for thirty-five days on the sledges. Besides this, of course, we had a depot at every degree of latitude up to 80º.
It looked as though we had found our depot at the right moment, for when we came out to continue our journey the whole Barrier was in a blizzard. A gale was blowing from the south, with a sky completely clouded over; falling snow and drift united in a delightful dance, and made it difficult to see. The lucky thing was that now we had the wind with us, and thus escaped getting it all in our eyes, as, we had been accustomed to. The big crevasse, which, as we knew, lay right across the line of our route, made us go very carefully. To avoid any risk, Bjaaland and Hassel, who went in advance, fastened an alpine rope between them. The snow was very deep and loose, and the going very heavy. Fortunately, we were warned in time of our approach to the expected cracks by the appearance of some bare ice ridges. These told us clearly enough that disturbances had taken place here, and that even greater ones might be expected, probably near at hand. At that moment the thick curtain of cloud was torn asunder, and the sun pierced the whirling mass of snow. Instantly Hanssen shouted: "Stop, Bjaaland!" He was just on the edge of the yawning crevasse.
Bjaaland himself has splendid sight, but his excellent snow-goggles -- his own patent -- entirely prevented his seeing. Well, Bjaaland would not have been in any serious danger if he had fallen into the crevasse, as he was roped to Hassel, but it would have been confoundedly unpleasant all the same.
As I have said before, I assume that these great disturbances here mark the boundary between the Barrier and the land. This time, curiously enough, they
seemed also to form a boundary between good and bad weather, for on the far side of them -- to the north -- the Barrier lay bathed in sunshine. On the south the blizzard raged worse than ever. Mount Betty was the last to send us its farewell.
South Victoria Land had gone into hiding, and did not show itself again. As soon as we came into the sunshine, we ran upon one of our beacons; our course lay straight towards it. That was not bad steering in the dark. At 9 p.m. we reached the depot in 85º S. Now we could begin to be liberal with the dogs' food, too; they had double pemmican rations, besides as many oatmeal biscuits as they would eat. We had such masses of biscuits now that we could positively throw them about. Of course, we might have left a large part of these provisions behind; but there was a great satisfaction in being so well supplied with food, and the dogs did not seem to mind the little extra weight in the least. As long as things went so capitally as they were going -- that is, with men and dogs exactly keeping pace with one another -- we could ask for nothing better. But the weather that had cheered us was not of long duration. "Same beastly weather,"
my diary says of the next stage. The wind had shifted to the north-west, with overcast, thick weather, and very troublesome drifting snow. In spite of these unfavourable conditions, we passed beacon after beacon, and at the end of our march had picked up all the beacons we had erected on this distance of seventeen miles and three-eighths. But, as before, we owed this to Hanssen's good eyes.
On our way southward we had taken a good deal of seal meat and had divided it among the depots we built on the Barrier in such a way that we were now able to eat fresh meat every day. This had not been done without an object; if we should be visited with scurvy, this fresh meat would be invaluable. As we were -- sound and healthy as we had never been before -- the seal-beef was a pleasant distraction in our menu, nothing more. The temperature had risen greatly since we came down on to the Barrier, and kept steady at about + 14º F. We were so warm in our sleeping-bags that we had to turn them with the hair out. That was better; we breathed more freely and felt happier. "Just like going into an ice-cellar," somebody remarked. The same feeling as when on a really warm summer day one comes out of the hot sun into cool shade.
January 9. -- "Same beastly weather; snow, snow, snow, nothing but snow. Is there no end to it? Thick too, so that we have not been able to see ten yards ahead. Temperature + 17.6º F. Thawing everywhere on the sledges. Everything getting wet. Have not found a single beacon in this blind man's weather. The snow was very deep to begin with and the going exceedingly heavy, but in spite
of this the dogs managed their sledges very well." That evening the weather improved, fortunately, and became comparatively clear by the time we resumed our journey at 10 p.m. Not long after we sighted one of our beacons. It lay to the west, about 200 yards away. We were thus not far out of our course; we turned aside and went up to it, as it was interesting to see whether our reckoning was in order. The beacon was somewhat damaged by sunshine and storms, but we found the paper left in it, which told us that this beacon was erected on November 14, in 84º 26' S. It also told us what course to steer by compass to reach the next beacon, which lay five kilometres from this one.
As we were leaving this old friend and setting our course as it advised, to our unspeakable astonishment two great birds -- skua gulls -- suddenly came flying straight towards us. They circled round us once or twice and then settled on the beacon. Can anyone who reads these lines form an idea of the effect this had upon us? It is hardly likely. They brought us a message from the living world into this realm of death -- a message of all that was dear to us. I think the same thoughts filled us all. They did not allow themselves a long rest, these first messengers from another world; they sat still a while, no doubt wondering who we were, then rose aloft and flew on to the south. Mysterious creatures! they were now exactly half-way between Framheim and the Pole, and yet they were going farther inland. Were they going over to the other side?
Our march ended this time at one of our beacons, in 84º 15'. It felt so good and safe to lie beside one of these; it always gave us a sure starting-point for the following stage. We were up at 4 a.m. and left the place a few hours later, with the result that the day's march brought us thirty-four miles nearer Framheim.
With our present arrangement, we had these long-day marches every other day.
