On October 20 the southern party left.  It consisted of five men with four sledges and fifty-two dogs, and had provisions for four months.  Everything was in excellent order, and we had made up our minds to take it easy during the first part of the journey, so that we and the dogs might not be too fatigued, and we therefore decided to make a little halt on the 22nd at the depot that lay in lat. 80deg..  However, we missed the mark owing to thick fog, but after two or three miles’ march we found the place again.

When we had rested here and given the dogs as much seal meat as they were able to eat, we started again on the 26th.  The temperature remained steady, between -5deg. and -22deg.  F.

At first we had made up our minds not to drive more than twelve to eighteen miles a day; but this proved to be too little, thanks to our strong and willing animals.  At lat. 80deg. we began to erect snow beacons, about the height of a man, to show us the way home.

On the 31st we reached the depot in lat. 81deg..  We halted for a day and fed the dogs on pemmican.  On November 5 we reached the depot in 82deg., where for the last time the dogs got as much to eat as they could manage.

On the 8th we started southward again, and now made a daily march of about thirty miles.  In order to relieve the heavily laden sledges, we formed a depot at every parallel we reached.  The journey from lat. 82deg. to 83deg. was a pure pleasure trip, on account of the surface and the temperature, which were as favourable as one could wish.  Everything went swimmingly until the 9th, when we sighted South Victoria Land and the continuation of the mountain chain, which Shackleton gives on his map, running southeast from Beardmore Glacier.  On the same day we reached lat. 83deg., and established here Depot No. 4.

On the 11th we made the interesting discovery that the Ross Barrier ended in an elevation on the south-east, formed between a chain of mountains running south-eastward from South Victoria Land and another chain on the opposite side, which runs south-westward in continuation of King Edward VII.  Land.

On the 13th we reached lat. 84deg., where we established a depot.  On the 16th we got to 85deg., where again we formed a depot.  From our winter quarters at Framheim we had marched due south the whole time.

On November 17, in lat. 85deg., we came to a spot where the land barrier intersected our route, though for the time being this did not cause us any difficulty.  The barrier here rises in the form of a wave to a height of about 300 feet, and its limit is shown by a few large fissures.  Here we established our main depot.  We took supplies for sixty days on the sledges and left behind enough provisions for thirty days.

The land under which we now lay, and which we were to attack, looked perfectly impossible, with peaks along the barrier which rose to heights of from 2,000 to 10,000 feet.  Farther south we saw more peaks, of 15,000 feet or higher.