This Barrier, which we were to know so well, was soft, too soft for the ponies, and apparently flat.  Only to our left, some hundreds of yards distant, there were two little snowy mounds.  We got out the telescope which we carried, but could make nothing of them.  While we held our ponies Scott walked towards them, and soon we saw him brushing away snow and uncovering something dark beneath.  They were tents, obviously left by Shackleton or his men when the Nimrod was embarking his Southern party from the Barrier.  They were snowed up outside, and iced up inside almost to the caps.  Afterwards we dug them out, a good evening’s work.  The fabric was absolutely rotten, we just tore it down with our hands, but the bamboos and caps were as sound as ever.  When we had dug down to the floor-cloth we found everything intact as when it was left.  The cooker was there and a primus—­Scott lighted it and cooked a meal; we often used it afterwards.  And there were Rowntree’s cocoa, Bovril, Brand’s extract of beef, sheep’s tongues, cheese and biscuits—­all open to the snow and all quite good.  We ate them for several days.  There is something impressive in these first meals off food which has been exposed for years.

It was on a Saturday, January 28, that we took our first load a short half-mile on to the Barrier and left it at a place afterwards known as the Fodder Depot.  Two days later we moved our camp 1 mile 1200 yards farther on to the Barrier and here was erected the main depot, known as Safety Camp.  ‘Safety’ because it was supposed that even if a phenomenal break-up of sea-ice should occur, and take with it part of the Barrier, this place would remain.  Subsequent events proved the supposition well founded.  This short bit of Barrier sledging gave all of us food for thought, for the surface was appallingly soft, and the poor ponies were sinking deep.  It was obvious that no animals could last long under such conditions.  But somehow Shackleton had got his four a long way.

There was now no hurry, for there was plenty of food.  It was only when we went on from here that we must economize food and travel fast.  It was determined to give the ponies a rest while we made the depot and rearranged sledges, which we did on the following day.  We had with us one pair of pony snow-shoes, a circle of wire as a foundation, hooped round with bamboo, and with beckets of the same material.  The surface suggested their trial, which was completely successful.  The question of snow-shoes had been long and anxiously considered, and shoes for all the ponies were at Cape Evans; but as we had so lately landed from the ship the ponies had not been trained in their use, and they had not been brought.