172 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDETION [DEcEMBER 
frightened a loife out of me, Sorr!’? Meanwhile Gran had laid 
the poles up against the floe and left his bag just behind, when the 
mush gave way and in he went. He rescued his bag, and cling- 
ing to the poles he somehow managed to crawl up the ice foot, 
but he was pretty wet and soon very cold. 
We traversed some distance to the north, Gran on the ice 
foot and myself on the mush. At every footstep water oozed 
up, and this doubtful belt was forty feet wide. I managed to 
get to land, but we could not have got the sledge over. We 
returned to find Debenham had gone through also. So I deter- 
mined to make our survey from where we left the sledge and to 
return immediately thereto. 
First, however, we had to get Gran off the ice foot. He 
threw his bag out towards us and as I went to get it I went in 
nearly to my waist. Luckily I managed to lean back on to less 
rotten mush. Then we lashed the bag ropes together and threw 
them to him. He threw the tent poles on to the mush and then 
launched himself spread-eagle on the poles. The whole floe 
rocked up and down like a jelly, but the poles kept him up 
and he reached us without further mishap. 
This slush—half ice, half snow—was much riskier than 
broken floe, for there was nothing to grip, and I think Forde 
voiced our opinions when he said: ‘ You done a wise thing to 
give that place a miss!’ Gran and I were pretty chilled when 
we reached our tent, but soon got warm in our bags and slept 
off any ill effects. 
We had an even more difficult time returning. My diary re- 
cords it as ‘hellish.’ We managed the two miles with the light 
sledge in four hours, during which we experienced an interesting 
anatomical phenomenon—as if our insides were getting driven 
out of our backs by the drag of the harness! 
Next day by evening we reached Camp Geology again. 
Everything was buried in snow. A tin of biscuits weighing 40 
lbs. had been blown six feet off a rock. Granite Hut was half 
filled with snow and we later found that our flagpole on the 
bluff, although of male bamboo two inches thick, was broken 
into a dozen strands. 
December 10 was a Sunday, and we registered our highest 
temperature of + 40°. We expected the warmest day early 
in January, but it rarely rose above freezing point any more 
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