Scott's Last Expedition Part 51

Laleham Biela Noogis White Leader Laleham.

Leighton Pudil Poodle Leighton Park, Reading.

Lyon Tresor Treasure Lower School of J. Lyon.

Mac Deek I. Wild One Wells House.

Manor Colonel Colonel Manor House.

Mount Vesoi One Eye Mount, York.

Mundella Bulli Bullet Mundella Secondary.

Oakfield Ruggiola Sabaka 'Gun Dog' (Hound) Oakfield School, Rugby.

Oldham Vaida Christian name Hulme Grammar School, Oldham.

Perse Vaska Lady's name Perse Grammar.

Poacher Malchick Black Old Man Grammar School, Lincoln.

Chorney Stareek Price Llewelyn Hohol Little Russian Intermediate, Llan-dudno Wells.

Radlyn Czigane Gipsy Radlyn, Harrogate.

Richmond Osman Christian name Richmond, Yorks.

Regent Marakas seri Grey Regent Street Polytechnic Steyne Petichka Little Bird Steyne, Worthing.

Sir Andrew Deek II. Wild One Sir Andrew Judd's Commercial School.

Somerset Churnie kesoi One eye A Somerset School.

Tiger Mukaka Monkey Bournemouth School.

Tom Stareek Old Man Woodbridge.

Tua r Golleniai Julik Scamp Intermediate School, Cardiff.

Vic Glinie Long Nose Modern, Southport.

Whitgift Mamuke Rabchick Little Grouse Whitgift Grammar.

Winston Borup Borup Winston Higher Grade School (cost of transport).

Meduate Lion N.Z. Girls' School.

_Note_ 2, _p_. 4.--Those who are named in these opening pages were all keen supporters of the Expedition. Sir George Clifford, Bart., and Messrs. Arthur and George Rhodes were friends from Christchurch. Mr. M. J. Miller, Mayor of Lyttelton, was a master s.h.i.+pwright and contractor, who took great interest in both the _Discovery_ and the _Terra Nova_, and stopped the leak in the latter vessel which had been so troublesome on the voyage out. Mr. Anderson belonged to the firm of John Anderson & Sons, engineers, who own Lyttelton Foundry. Mr. Kinsey was the trusted friend and representative who acted as the representative of Captain Scott in New Zealand during his absence in the South. Mr. Wyatt was business manager to the Expedition.

_Note_ 3. _p_. 11.--Dr. Wilson writes: I must say I enjoyed it all from beginning to end, and as one bunk became unbearable after another, owing to the wet, and the comments became more and more to the point as people searched out dry spots here and there to finish the night in oilskins and greatcoats on the cabin or ward-room seats, I thought things were becoming interesting.

Some of the staff were like dead men with sea-sickness. Even so Cherry-Garrard and Wright and Day turned out with the rest of us and alternately worked and were sick.

I have no sea-sickness on these s.h.i.+ps myself under any conditions, so I enjoyed it all, and as I have the run of the bridge and can ask as many questions as I choose, I knew all that was going on.

All Friday and Friday night we worked in two parties, two hours on and two hours off; it was heavy work filling and handing up huge buckets of water as fast as they could be given from one to the other from the very bottom of the stokehold to the upper deck, up little metal ladders all the way. One was of course wet through the whole time in a sweater and trousers and sea boots, and every two hours one took these off and hurried in for a rest in a greatcoat, to turn out again in two hours and put in the same cold sopping clothes, and so on until 4 A.M. on Sat.u.r.day, when we had baled out between four and five tons of water and had so lowered it that it was once more possible to light fires and try the engines and the steam pump again and to clear the valves and the inlet which was once more within reach. The fires had been put out at 11.40 A.M. and were then out for twenty-two hours while we baled. It was a weird' night's work with the howling gale and the darkness and the immense seas running over the s.h.i.+p every few minutes and no engines and no sail, and we all in the engine-room, black as ink with the engine-room oil and bilge water, singing chanties as we pa.s.sed up slopping buckets full of bilge, each man above' slopping a little over the heads of all below him; wet through to the skin, so much so that some of the party worked altogether naked like Chinese coolies; and the rush of the wave backwards and forwards at the bottom grew hourly less in the dim light of a couple of engine-room oil lamps whose light just made the darkness visible, the s.h.i.+p all the time rolling like a sodden lifeless log, her lee gunwale under water every time.

_December_ 3. We were all at work till 4 A.M. and then were all told off to sleep till 8 A.M. At 9.30 A.M. we were all on to the main hand pump, and, lo and behold! it worked, and we pumped and pumped till 12.30, when the s.h.i.+p was once more only as full of bilge water as she always is and the position was practically solved.

There was one thrilling moment in the midst of the worst hour on Friday when we were realising that the fires must be drawn, and when every pump had failed to act, and when the bulwarks began to go to pieces and the petrol cases were all afloat and going overboard, and the word was suddenly pa.s.sed in a shout from the hands at work in the waist of the s.h.i.+p trying to save petrol cases that smoke was coming up through the seams in the after hold. As this was full of coal and patent fuel and was next the engine-room, and as it had not been opened for the airing, it required to get rid of gas on account of the flood of water on deck making it impossible to open the hatchways; the possibility of a fire there was patent to everyone and it could not possibly have been dealt with in any way short of opening the hatches and flooding the s.h.i.+p, when she must have floundered. It was therefore a thrilling moment or two until it was discovered that the smoke was really steam, arising from the bilge at the bottom having risen to the heated coal.

_Note_ 4, _p_. 15.--_December_ 26. We watched two or three immense blue whales at fairly short distance; this is _Balaenoptera Sibbaldi_. One sees first a small dark hump appear and then immediately a jet of grey fog squirted upwards fifteen to eighteen feet, gradually spreading as it rises vertically into the frosty air. I have been nearly in these blows once or twice and had the moisture in my face with a sickening smell of shrimpy oil. Then the b.u.mp elongates and up rolls an immense blue-grey or blackish grey round back with a faint ridge along the top, on which presently appears a small hook-like dorsal fin, and then the whole sinks and disappears. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 5, _p_. 21.--_December_ 18. Watered s.h.i.+p at a tumbled floe. Sea ice when pressed up into large hummocks gradually loses all its salt. Even when sea water freezes it squeezes out the great bulk of its salt as a solid, but the sea water gets into it by soaking again, and yet when held out of the water, as it is in a hummock, the salt all drains out and the melted ice is blue and quite good for drinking, engines, &c. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 6, _p_. 32.--It may be added that in contradistinction to the nicknames of Skipper conferred upon Evans, and Mate on Campbell, Scott himself was known among the afterguard as The Owner.

_Note_ 7, _p_. 35.--(Penguins.) They have lost none of their attractiveness, and are most comical and interesting; as curious as ever, they will always come up at a trot when we sing to them, and you may often see a group of explorers on the p.o.o.p singing 'For she's got bells on her fingers and rings on her toes, elephants to ride upon wherever she goes,' and so on at the top of their voices to an admiring group of Adelie penguins. Meares is the greatest attraction; he has a full voice which is musical but always very flat. He declares that 'G.o.d save the King' will always send them to the water, and certainly it is often successful. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 8, _p_. 58.--We were to examine the possibilities of landing, but the swell was so heavy in its break among the floating blocks of ice along the actual beach and ice foot that a landing was out of the question. We should have broken up the boat and have all been in the water together. But I a.s.sure you it was tantalising to me, for there about 6 feet above us on a small dirty piece of the old bay ice about ten feet square one living Emperor penguin chick was standing disconsolately stranded, and close by stood one faithful old Emperor parent asleep. This young Emperor was still in the down, a most interesting fact in the bird's life history at which we had rightly guessed, but which no one had actually observed before. It was in a stage never yet seen or collected, for the wings were already quite clean of down and feathered as in the adult, also a line down the breast was shed of down, and part of the head. This bird would have been a treasure to me, but we could not risk life for it, so it had to remain where it was. It was a curious fact that with as much clean ice to live on as they could have wished for, these dest.i.tute derelicts of a flouris.h.i.+ng colony now gone north to sea on floating bay ice should have preferred to remain standing on the only piece of bay ice left, a piece about ten feet square and now pressed up six feet above water level, evidently wondering why it was so long in starting north with the general exodus which must have taken place just a month ago. The whole incident was most interesting and full of suggestion as to the slow working of the brain of these queer people. Another point was most weird to see, that on the under side of this very dirty piece of sea ice, which was about two feet thick and which hung over the water as a sort of cave, we could see the legs and lower halves of dead Emperor chicks hanging through, and even in one place a dead adult. I hope to make a picture of the whole quaint incident, for it was a corner crammed full of Imperial history in the light of what we already knew, and it would otherwise have been about as unintelligible as any group of animate or inanimate nature could possibly have been. As it is, it throws more light on the life history of this strangely primitive bird.

We were joking in the boat as we rowed under these cliffs and saying it would be a short-lived amus.e.m.e.nt to see the overhanging cliff part company and fall over us. So we were glad to find that we were rowing back to the s.h.i.+p and already 200 or 300 yards away from the place and in open water when there was a noise like crackling thunder and a huge plunge into the sea and a smother of rock dust like the smoke of an explosion, and we realised that the very thing had happened which we had just been talking about. Altogether it was a very exciting row, for before we got on board we had the pleasure of seeing the s.h.i.+p shoved in so close to these cliffs by a belt of heavy pack ice that to us it appeared a toss-up whether she got out again or got forced in against the rocks. She had no time or room to turn and get clear by backing out through the belt of pack stern first, getting heavy b.u.mps under the counter and on the rudder as she did so, for the ice was heavy and the swell considerable. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 9, _p_. 81.--Dr. Wilson writes in his Journal: _January_ 14. He also told me the plans for our depot journey on which we shall be starting in about ten days' time. He wants me to be a dog driver with himself, Meares, and Teddie Evans, and this is what I would have chosen had I had a free choice at all. The dogs run in two teams and each team wants two men. It means a lot of running as they are being driven now, but it is the fastest and most interesting work of all, and we go ahead of the whole caravan with lighter loads and at a faster rate; moreover, if any traction except ourselves can reach the top of Beardmore Glacier, it will be the dogs, and the dog drivers are therefore the people who will have the best chance of doing the top piece of the ice cap at 10,000 feet to the Pole. May I be there! About this time next year may I be there or there-abouts! With so many young bloods in the heyday of youth and strength beyond my own I feel there will be a most difficult task in making choice towards the end and a most keen compet.i.tion--and a universal lack of selfishness and self-seeking with a complete absence of any jealous feeling in any single one of the comparatively large number who at present stand a chance of being on the last piece next summer.

It will be an exciting time and the excitement has already begun in the healthiest possible manner. I have never been thrown in with a more unselfish lot of men--each one doing his utmost fair and square in the most cheery manner possible.

As late as October 15 he writes further: 'No one yet knows who will be on the Summit party: it is to depend on condition, and fitness when we get there.' It is told of Scott, while still in New Zealand, that being pressed on the point, he playfully said, 'Well, I should like to have Bill to hold my hand when we get to the Pole'; but the Diary shows how the actual choice was made on the march.

_Note_ 10, _p_. 86.--Campbell, Levick, and Priestly set off to the old _Nimrod_ hut eight miles away to see if they could find a stove of convenient size for their own hut, as well as any additional paraffin, and in default of the latter, to kill some seals for oil.

_Note_ 11, _p_. 92.--The management of stores and transport was finally entrusted to Bowers. Rennick therefore remained with the s.h.i.+p. A story told by Lady Scott ill.u.s.trates the spirit of these men--the expedition first, personal distinctions nowhere. It was in New Zealand and the very day on which the order had been given for Bowers to exchange with Rennick. In the afternoon Captain Scott and his wife were returning from the s.h.i.+p to the house where they were staying; on the hill they saw the two men coming down with arms on each other's shoulders--a fine testimony to both. 'Upon my word,'

exclaimed Scott, 'that shows Rennick in a good light!'

_Note_ 12, _p_. 102.--_January_ 29. The seals have been giving a lot of trouble, that is just to Meares and myself with our dogs. The whole teams go absolutely crazy when they sight them or get wind of them, and there are literally hundreds along some of the cracks. Occasionally when one pictures oneself quite away from trouble of that kind, an old seal will pop his head up at a blowhole a few yards ahead of the team, and they are all on top of him before one can say 'Knife!' Then one has to rush in with the whip--and every one of the team of eleven jumps over the harness of the dog next to him and the harnesses become a muddle that takes much patience to unravel, not to mention care lest the whole team should get away with the sledge and its load and leave one behind to follow on foot at leisure. I never did get left the whole of this depot journey, but I was often very near it and several times had only time to seize a strap or a part of the sledge and be dragged along helter-skelter over everything that came in the way till the team got sick of galloping and one could struggle to one's feet again. One gets very wary and wide awake when one has to manage a team of eleven dogs and a sledge load by oneself, but it was a most interesting experience, and I had a delightful leader, 'Stareek' by name--Russian for 'Old Man,' and he was the most wise old man. We have to use Russian terms with all our dogs. 'Ki Ki'

means go to the right, 'Chui' means go to the left, 'Esh to' means lie down--and the remainder are mostly swear words which mean everything else which one has to say to a dog team. Dog driving like this in the orthodox manner is a very different thing to the beastly dog driving we perpetrated in the Discovery days. I got to love all my team and they got to know me well, and my old leader even now, six months after I have had anything to do with him, never fails to come and speak to me whenever he sees me, and he knows me and my voice ever so far off. He is quite a ridiculous 'old man' and quite the nicest, quietest, cleverest old dog I have ever come across. He looks in face as if he knew all the wickedness of all the world and all its cares and as if he were bored to death by them. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 13, _p_. 111.--_February_ 15. There were also innumerable subsidences of the surface--the breaking of crusts over air s.p.a.ces under them, large areas of dropping 1/4 inch or so with a hus.h.i.+ng sort of noise or m.u.f.fled report.--My leader Stareek, the nicest and wisest old dog in both teams, thought there was a rabbit under the crust every time one gave way close by him and he would jump sideways with both feet on the spot and his nose in the snow. The action was like a flash and never checked the team--it was most amusing. I have another funny little dog, Mukaka, small but very game and a good worker. He is paired with a fat, lazy and very greedy black dog, Nugis by name, and in every march this sprightly little Mukaka will once or twice notice that Nugis is not pulling and will jump over the trace, bite Nugis like a snap, and be back again in his own place before the fat dog knows what has happened. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 13_a_, _p_. 125.--Taking up the story from the point where eleven of the thirteen dogs had been brought to the surface, Mr. Cherry-Garrard's Diary records:

This left the two at the bottom. Scott had several times wanted to go down. Bill said to me that he hoped he wouldn't, but now he insisted. We found the Alpine rope would reach, and then lowered Scott down to the platform, sixty feet below. I thought it very plucky. We then hauled the two dogs up on the rope, leaving Scott below. Scott said the dogs were very glad to see him; they had curled up asleep--it was wonderful they had no bones broken.

Then Meares' dogs, which were all wandering about loose, started fighting our team, and we all had to leave Scott and go and separate them, which took some time. They fixed on Noogis (I.) badly. We then hauled Scott up: it was all three of us could do--fingers a good deal frost-bitten at the end. That was all the dogs. Scott has just said that at one time he never hoped to get back the thirteen or even half of them. When he was down in the creva.s.se he wanted to go off exploring, but we dissuaded him. Of course it was a great opportunity. He kept on saying, 'I wonder why this is running the way it is--you expect to find them at right angles.'

Scott found inside creva.s.se warmer than above, but had no thermometer. It is a great wonder the whole sledge did not drop through: the inside was like the cliff of Dover.

_Note_ 14, _p_. 136.--_February_ 28. Meares and I led off with a dog team each, and leaving the Barrier we managed to negotiate the first long pressure ridge of the sea ice where the seals all lie, without much trouble--the dogs were running well and fast and we kept on the old tracks, still visible, by which we had come out in January, heading a long way out to make a wide detour round the open water off Cape Armitage, from which a very wide extent of thick black fog, 'frost smoke' as we call it, was rising on our right. This completely obscured our view of the open water, and the only suggestion it gave me was that the thaw pool off the Cape was much bigger than when we pa.s.sed it in January and that we should probably have to make a detour of three or four miles round it to reach Hut Point instead of one or two. I still thought it was not impossible to reach Hut Point this way, so we went on, but before we had run two miles on the sea ice we noticed that we were coming on to an area broken up by fine thread-like cracks evidently quite fresh, and as I ran along by the sledge I paced them and found they curved regularly at every 30 paces, which could only mean that they were caused by a swell. This suggested to me that the thaw pool off Cape Armitage was even bigger than I thought and that we were getting on to ice which was breaking up, to flow north into it. We stopped to consider, and found that the cracks in the ice we were on were the rise and fall of a swell. Knowing that the ice might remain like this with each piece tight against the next only until the tide turned, I knew that we must get off it at once in case the tide did turn in the next half-hour, when each crack would open up into a wide lead of open water and we should find ourselves on an isolated floe. So we at once turned and went back as fast as possible to the unbroken sea ice. Obviously it was now unsafe to go round to Hut Point by Cape Armitage and we therefore made for the Gap. It was between eight and nine in the evening when we turned, and we soon came in sight of the pony party, led as we thought by Captain Scott. We were within 1/2 a mile of them when we hurried right across their bows and headed straight for the Gap, making a course more than a right angle off the course we had been on. There was the seals' pressure ridge of sea ice between us and them, but as I could see them quite distinctly I had no doubt they could see us, and we were occupied more than once just then in beating the teams off stray seals, so that we didn't go by either vary quickly or very silently. From here we ran into the Gap, where there was some nasty pressed-up ice to cross and large gaps and cracks by the ice foot; but with the Alpine rope and a rush we got first one team over and then the other without mishap on to the land ice, and were then practically at Hut Point. However, expecting that the pony party was following us, we ran our teams up on to level ice, picketed them, and pitched our tent, to remain there for the night, as we had a half-mile of rock to cross to reach the hut and the sledges would have to be carried over this and the dogs led by hand in couples--a very long job. Having done this we returned to the ice foot with a pick and a shovel to improve the road up for horse party, as they would have to come over the same bad ice we had found difficult with the dogs; but they were nowhere to be seen close at hand as we had expected, for they were miles out, as we soon saw, still trying to reach Hut Point by the sea ice round Cape Armitage thaw pool, and on the ice which was showing a working crack at 30 paces. I couldn't understand how Scott could do such a thing, and it was only the next day that I found out that Scott had remained behind and had sent Bowers in charge of this pony party. Bowers, having had no experience of the kind, did not grasp the situation for some time, and as we watched him and his party--or as we thought Captain Scott and his party--of ponies we saw them all suddenly realise that they were getting into trouble and the whole party turned back; but instead of coming back towards the Gap as we had, we saw them go due south towards the Barrier edge and White Island. Then I thought they were all right, for I knew they would get on to safe ice and camp for the night. We therefore had our supper in the tent and were turning in between eleven and twelve when I had a last look to see where they were and found they had camped as it appeared to me on safe Barrier ice, the only safe thing they could have done. They were now about six miles away from us, and it was lucky that I had my Goerz gla.s.ses with me so that we could follow their movements. Now as everything looked all right, Meares and I turned in and slept. At 5 A.M. I awoke, and as I felt uneasy about the party I went out and along the Gap to where we could see their camp, and I was horrified to see that the whole of the sea ice was now on the move and that it had broken up for miles further than when we turned in and right back past where they had camped, and that the pony party was now, as we could see, adrift on a floe and separated by open water and a lot of drifting ice from the edge of the fast Barrier ice. We could see with our gla.s.ses that they were running the ponies and sledges over as quickly as possible from floe to floe whenever they could, trying to draw nearer to the safe Barrier ice again. The whole Strait was now open water to the N. of Cape Armitage, with the frost smoke rising everywhere from it, and full of pieces of floating ice, all going up N. to Ross Sea.

_March_ 1. _Ash Wednesday_. The question for us was whether we could do anything to help them. There was no boat anywhere and there was no one to consult with, for everyone was on the floating floe as we believed, except Teddie Evans, Forde, and Keohane, who with one pony were on their way back from Corner Camp. So we searched the Barrier for signs of their tent and then saw that there was a tent at Safety Camp, which meant evidently to us that they had returned. The obvious thing was to join up with them and go round to where the pony party was adrift, and see if we could help them to reach the safe ice. So without waiting for breakfast we went off six miles to this tent. We couldn't go now by the Gap, for the ice by which we had reached land yesterday was now broken up in every direction and all on the move up the Strait. We had no choice now but to cross up by Crater Hill and down by Pram Point and over the pressure ridges and so on to the Barrier and off to Safety Camp. We couldn't possibly take a dog sledge this way, so we walked, taking the Alpine rope to cross the pressure ridges, which are full of creva.s.ses.

We got to this tent soon after noon and were astonished to find that not Teddie Evans and his two seamen were here, but that Scott and Oates and Gran were in it and no pony with them. Teddie Evans was still on his way back from Corner Camp and had not arrived. It was now for the first time that we understood how the accident had happened. When we had left Safety Camp yesterday with the dogs, the ponies began their march to follow us, but one of the ponies was so weak after the last blizzard and so obviously about to die that Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, and Crean were sent on with the four capable ponies, while Scott, Oates, and Gran remained at Safety Camp till the sick pony died, which happened apparently that night. He was dead and buried when we got there. We found that Scott had that morning seen the open water up to the Barrier edge and had been in a dreadful state of mind, thinking that Meares and I, as well as the whole pony party, had gone out into the Strait on floating ice. He was therefore much relieved when we arrived and he learned for the first time where the pony party was trying to get to fast ice again. We were now given some food, which we badly wanted, and while we were eating we saw in the far distance a single man coming hurriedly along the edge of the Barrier ice from the direction of the catastrophe party and towards our camp. Gran went off on ski to meet him, and when he arrived we found it was Crean, who had been sent off by Bowers with a note, unenc.u.mbered otherwise, to jump from one piece of floating ice to another until he reached the fast edge of the Barrier in order to let Capt. Scott know what had happened. This he did, of course not knowing that we or anyone else had seen him go adrift, and being unable to leave the ponies and all his loaded sledges himself. Crean had considerable difficulty and ran a pretty good risk in doing this, but succeeded all right. There were now Scott, Oates, Crean, Gran, Meares, and myself here and only three sleeping-bags, so the three first remained to see if they could help Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, and the ponies, while Meares, Gran, and I returned to look after our dogs at Hut Point. Here we had only two sleeping-bags for the three of us, so we had to take turns, and I remained up till 1 o'clock that night while Gran had six hours in my bag. It was a bitterly cold job after a long day. We had been up at 5 with nothing to eat till 1 o'clock, and walked 14 miles. The nights are now almost dark.

_March_ 2. A very bitter wind blowing and it was a cheerless job waiting for six hours to get a sleep in the bag. I walked down from our tent to the hut and watched whales blowing in the semi-darkness out in the black water of the Strait. When we turned out in the morning the pony party was still on floating ice but not any further from the Barrier ice. By a merciful providence the current was taking them rather along the Barrier edge, where they went adrift, instead of straight out to sea. We could do nothing more for them, so we set to our work with the dogs. It was blowing a bitter gale of wind from the S.E. with some drift and we made a number of journeys backwards and forwards between the Gap and the hut, carrying our tent and camp equipment down and preparing a permanent picketing line for the dogs. As the ice had all gone out of the Strait we were quite cut off from any return to Cape Evans until the sea should again freeze over, and this was not likely until the end of April. We rigged up a small fireplace in the hut and found some wood and made a fire for an hour or so at each meal, but as there was no coal and not much wood we felt we must be economical with the fuel, and so also with matches and everything else, in case Bowers should lose his sledge loads, which had most of the supplies for the whole party to last twelve men for two months. The weather had now become too thick for us to distinguish anything in the distance and we remained in ignorance as to the party adrift until Sat.u.r.day. I had also lent my gla.s.ses to Captain Scott. This night I had first go in the bag, and turned out to s.h.i.+ver for eight hours till breakfast. There was literally nothing in the hut that one could cover oneself with to keep warm and we couldn't run to keeping the fire going. It was very cold work. There were heaps of biscuit cases here which we had left in _Discovery_ days, and with these we built up a small inner hut to live in.

_March_ 3. Spent the day in transferring dogs in couples from the Gap to the hut. In the afternoon Teddie Evans and Atkinson turned up from over the hills, having returned from their Corner Camp journey with one horse and two seamen, all of which they had left encamped at Castle Rock, three miles off on the hills. They naturally expected to find Scott here and everyone else and had heard nothing of the pony party going adrift, but having found only open water ahead of them they turned back and came to land by Castle Rock slopes. We fed them and I walked half-way back to Castle Rock with them.

_March_ 4. Meares, Gran, and I walked up Ski Slope towards Castle Rock to meet Evans's party and pilot them and the dogs safely to Hut Point, but half-way we met Atkinson, who told us that they had now been joined by Scott and all the catastrophe party, who were safe, but who had lost all the ponies except one--a great blow. However, no lives were lost and the sledge loads and stores were saved, so Meares and I returned to Hut Point to make stables for the only two ponies that now remained, both in wretched condition, of the eight with which we started. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 15, _p_. 140.--_March_ 12. Thawed out some old magazines and picture papers which were left here by the _Discovery_, and gave us very good reading. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 16, _p_. 151.--_April_ 4. Fun over a fry I made in my new penquin lard. It was quite a success and tasted like very bad sardine oil. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 17, _p_. 169.--'Voyage of the Discovery,' chap. ix. 'The question of the moment is, what has become of our boats?' Early in the winter they were hoisted out to give more room for the awning, and were placed in a line about one hundred yards from the ice foot on the sea ice. The earliest gale drifted them up nearly gunwale high, and thus for two months they remained in sight whilst we congratulated ourselves on their security. The last gale brought more snow, and piling it in drifts at various places in the bay, chose to be specially generous with it in the neighbourhood of our boats, so that afterwards they were found to be buried three or four feet beneath the new surface. Although we had noted with interest the manner in which the extra weight of snow in other places was pressing down the surface of the original ice, and were even taking measurements of the effects thus produced, we remained fatuously blind to the risks our boats ran under such conditions. It was from no feeling of anxiety, but rather to provide occupation, that I directed that the snow on top of them should be removed, and it was not until we had dug down to the first boat that the true state of affairs dawned on us. She was found lying in a ma.s.s of slushy ice, with which also she was nearly filled. For the moment we had a wild hope that she could be pulled up, but by the time we could rig shears the air temperature had converted the slush into hardened ice, and she was found to be stuck fast. At present there is no hope of recovering any of the boats: as fast as one could dig out the sodden ice, more sea-water would flow in and freeze ... The danger is that fresh gales bringing more snow will sink them so far beneath the surface that we shall be unable to recover them at all. Stuck solid in the floe they must go down with it, and every effort must be devoted to preventing the floe from sinking. As regards the rope, it is a familiar experience that dark objects which absorb heat will melt their way through the snow or ice on which they lie.

_Note_ 18, _p_. 206.

Ponies Presented by Schools, &c.

School's, &c., Nickname of Pony. Name of School, &c., name of Pony. presented by.