The South Pole, Roald Amundsen [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

both became perfect; the sun shone from a cloudless sky, and the sledges ran on the fine, even surface with all the ease and speed that could be desired. Bjaaland, who had occupied the position of forerunner all the way from the Pole, performed his duties admirably; but the old saying that nobody is perfect applied even to him. None of us — no matter who it may be — can keep in a straight line, when he has no marks to follow. All the more difficult is this when, as so often happened with us, one has to go blindly. Most of us, I suppose, would swerve now to one side, now to the other, and possibly end, after all this groping, by keeping pretty well to the line. Not so with Bjaaland; he was a right-hand man. I can see him now; Hanssen has given him the direction by compass, and Bjaaland turns round, points his ski in the line indicated and sets of with decision. His movements clearly show that he has made up his mind, cost what it may, to keep in the right direction. He sends his ski firmly along, so that the snow spurts from them, and looks straight before him. But the result is the same; if Hanssen had let Bjaaland go on without any correction, in the course of an hour or so the latter would probably have described a beautiful circle and brought himself back to the spot from which he had started. Perhaps. after all, this was not a fault to complain of, since we always knew with absolute certainty that, when we had got out of the line of beacons, we were to the right of it and had to search for the beacons to the west. This conclusion proved very useful to us more than once, and we gradually became so familiar with Bjaaland’s right-handed tendencies that we actually counted on them.

On January 13, according to our reckoning, we ought to reach the depot in 83� S. This was the last of our depots that was not marked at right angles to the route, and therefore the last critical point. The day was not altogether suited for finding the needle in the haystack. It was calm with a thick fog, so thick that we could only see a few yards in front of us. We did not see a single beacon on the whole march. At 4 p.m. we had completed the distance, according to the sledge-meters, and reckoned that we ought to be in 83� S., by the depot; but there was nothing to be seen. We decided, therefore, to set our tent and wait till it cleared. While we were at work with this, there was a rift in the thick mass of fog, and there, not many yards away — to the west, of course — lay our depot. We quickly took the tent down again, packed it on the sledge, and drove up to our food mound, which proved to be quite in order. There was no sign of the birds having paid it a visit. But what was that? Fresh, well-marked dog-tracks in the newly-fallen snow. We soon saw that they must be the tracks of the runaways that we had lost here on the way south. Judging by appearances, they must have lain under the lee of the depot for a considerable time; two deep hollows in the snow told us that plainly. And evidently they must have had enough food, but where on earth had they got it from? The depot was absolutely untouched, in spite of the fact that the lumps of pemmican lay exposed to the light of day and were very easy to get at; besides which, the snow on the depot was not so hard as to prevent the dogs pulling it down and eating up all the food. Meanwhile the dogs had left the place again, as shown by the fresh trail, which pointed to the north. We examined the tracks very closely, and agreed that they were not more than two days old. They went northward, and we followed them from time to time on our next stage. At the beacon in 82� 45’, where we halted, we saw them still going to the north. In 82� 24’ the trail began to be much confused, and ended by pointing due west. That was the last we saw of the tracks; but we had not done with these dogs, or rather with their deeds. We stopped at the beacon in 82� 20’. Else, who had been laid on the top of it, had fallen down and lay by the side; the sun had thawed away the lower part of the beacon. So the roving dogs had not been here; so much was certain, for otherwise we should not have found Else as we did. We camped at the end of that stage by the beacon in 82� 15’, and shared out Else’s body. Although she had been lying in the strong sunshine, the flesh was quite good, when we had scraped away a little mouldiness. It smelt rather old, perhaps, but our dogs were not fastidious when it was a question of meat.

On January 16 we arrived at the depot in 82� S. We could see from a long way off that the order in which we had left it no longer prevailed. When we came up to it, we saw at once what had happened. The innumerable dog-tracks that had trampled the snow quite hard round the depot declared plainly enough that the runaways had spent a good deal of time here. Several of the cases belonging to the depot had fallen down, presumably from the same cause as Else, and the rascals had succeeded in breaking into one of them. Of the biscuits and pemmican which it had contained, nothing, of course, was left; but that made no difference to us now, as we had food in abundance. The two dogs’ carcasses that we had placed on the top of the depot — Uranus and Jaala — were gone, not even the teeth were to be seen. Yet they had left the teeth of Lucy, whom they had eaten in 82� 3’. Jaala’s eight puppies were still lying on the top of a case; curiously enough, they had not fallen down. In addition to all the rest, the beasts had devoured some ski-bindings and things of that sort. It was no loss to us, as it happened; but who could tell which way these creatures had gone? If they had succeeded in finding the depot in 80� S., they would probably by this time have finished our supply of seal meat there. Of course it would be regrettable if this had happened, although it would entail no danger either to ourselves or our animals. If we got as far as 80�, we should come through all right. For the time being, we had to console ourselves with the fact that we could see no continuation of the trail northward.

We permitted ourselves a little feast here in 82�. The “chocolate pudding” that Wisting served as dessert is still fresh in my memory; we all agreed that it came nearer perfection than anything it had hitherto fallen to our lot to taste. I may disclose the receipt: biscuit-crumbs, dried milk and chocolate are put into a kettle of boiling water. What happens afterwards, I don’t know; for further information apply to Wisting. Between 82� and 81� we came into our old marks of the second depot journey; on that trip we had marked this distance with splinters of packing-case at every geographical mile. That was in March, 1911, and now we were following these splinters in the second half of January, 1912. Apparently they stood exactly as they had been put in. This marking stopped in 81� 33’ S., with two pieces of case on a snow pedestal. The pedestal was still intact and good.

I shall let my diary describe what we saw on January 18: “Unusually fine weather to-day. Light south-south-west breeze, which in the course of our march cleared the whole sky. In 81� 20’ we came abreast of our old big pressure ridges. We now saw far more of them than ever before. They extended as far as the eye could see, running north-east to south-west, in ridges and peaks. Great was our surprise when, a short time after, we made out high, bare land in the same direction, and not long after that two lofty, white summits to the southeast, probably in about 82� S. It could be seen by the look of the sky that the land extended from north-east to south-west. This must be the same land that we saw lose itself in the horizon in about 84�S., when we stood at a height of about 4,000 feet and looked out over the Barrier, during our ascent. We now have sufficient indications to enable us without hesitation to draw this land as continuous — Carmen Land. The surface against the land is violently disturbed — crevasses and pressure ridges, waves and valleys, in all directions. We shall no doubt feel the effect of it to-morrow.” Although what we have seen apparently justifies us in concluding that Carmen Land extends from 86� S. to this position — about 81� 30’ S. — and possibly farther to the north-east, I have not ventured to lay it down thus on the map. I have contented myself with giving the name of Carmen Land to the land between 86� and 84�, and have called the rest “Appearance of Land.” It will be a profitable task for an explorer to investigate this district more closely.

As we had expected, on our next stage we were made to feel the effect of the disturbances. Three times we had now gone over this stretch of the Barrier without having really clear weather. This time we had it, and were able to see what it actually looked like. The irregularities began in 81� 12’ S., and did not extend very far from north to south-possibly about five kilometres (three and a quarter miles). How far they extended from east to west it is difficult to say, but at any rate as far as the eye could reach. Immense pieces of the surface had fallen away and opened up the most horrible yawning gulfs, big enough to swallow many caravans of the size of ours. From these open holes, ugly wide cracks ran out in all directions; besides which, mounds and haycocks were everywhere to be seen. Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all was that we had passed over here unharmed. We went across as light-footedly as possible, and at top speed. Hanssen went halfway into a crevasse, but luckily got out of it again without difficulty.

The depot in 81� S. was in perfect order; no dog-tracks to be seen there. Our hopes that the depot in 80� S. would be intact rose considerably. In 80� 45’ S. lay the first dog we had killed — Bone. He was particularly fat, and was immensely appreciated. The dogs no longer cared very much for pemmican. On January 21 we passed our last beacon, which stood in 80� 23’ S. Glad as we were to leave it behind, I cannot deny that it was with a certain feeling of melancholy that we saw it vanish. We had grown so fond of our beacons, and whenever we met them we greeted them as old friends. Many and great were the services these silent watchers did us on our long and lonely way.

On the same day we reached our big depot in 80� S., and now we considered that we were back. We could see at once that others had been at the depot since we had left it, and we found a message from Lieutenant