28 SCOTT'S “LAST .EXPEDENIGN [Jury 
visit was a very hurried one, unfortunately, owing to the short- 
ness of the light and the risk of getting benighted in the pressure 
ridges. Subsequent events unfortunately made another visit 
impossible. 
[ We legged it back as hard as we could go, two eggs each in 
our fur mits; Birdie with two skins tied on behind, and myself 
with one. We were roped up, and climbing the ridges and get- 
ting through the holes was very difficult. In one place where 
there was a steep rubble and snow slope down I left the ice-axe 
half-way up; in another it was too dark to see our former ice- 
axe footsteps, and I could see nothing, and so just let myself go 
and trusted to luck. Bill said with infinite patience, ‘ Cherry, you 
must learn how to use an ice-axe.’ For the rest of the trip my 
windclothes were in rags. 
We found the sledge, and none too soon. We had four eggs 
left, more or less whole. Both mine had burst in my mits: the 
first I emptied out, the second I left in my mit to put in the 
cooker; it never got there, but on the return journey I had my 
mits far more easily thawed out than Birdie’s (Bill had none), 
and I believe the grease in the egg did them good. When we got 
into the hollows under the ridge where we had to cross, it was 
too dark to do anything but feel our way—which we did over 
many crevasses, found the ridge and crept over it. Higher up 
we could see more, but to follow our tracks soon became im- 
possible, and we plugged straight ahead and luckily found the 
slope down which we had come. 
It began to blow, and as we were going up the slope to the 
tent, blew up to 4; it was such a bad light that we missed our 
way entirely and got right up above our knoll, and only found it 
after a good deal of search; meanwhile the weather was getting 
thick. ] 
On returning to the stone hut we flensed one of the penguin 
skins and cooked our supper on the blubber stove, which burnt 
furiously. I was incapacitated for the time being by a sputter of 
the hot oil catching me in one eye. We slept in the hut for the 
first time. 
[We moved into the igloo and began a wretched night. The 
wind was coming in all round. It began to drift, and the drift 
came in by a back draught under the door and covered everything 
—bags, socks, and all our gear. Bill started up the blubber stove 
