Waht is up with mount?

[Randy Ramsdell <rramsdel comcast net>]

What is this all about?

If I mount an ext3 filesystem like this:

mount /dev/hdb1 /backup

It mounts, but  "ls /backup"  produces : Literally !

>??  ??  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.??? ??.%^?  ??.%^?  
???.???  ??.4^?  ??.4^?   ?a.?e?  ?a.?e?  ?m"      ?m".?m"
???.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.%^?  ??.%^?  ??.4^? 
 ??.4^?  ??.4^?   ?a.?e?  ?a.?e?  ?m"      ?m".?m"
???.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.???  ??.%^?  ??.%^?  ??.4^? 
 ??.4^?  ??.4^?   ?a.?e?  ?a.?e?  ?m"      ?n"


If I mount like like this:

mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 /backup

"ls /backup" shows the actual files correctly.

Since there isn't an entry in fstab for /backup, I am not sure why 
"mount" actually mounts the drive.

Is this normal?