1912] MARCHING AGAIN IgI 
see them just below us. The surface was not very good, usually 
two inches deep in snow and occasionally a foot deep. This 
did not promise easy sledging; but the snow was dry now, and 
I was going to cut down the weights to a minimum. 
We could see open water about twenty miles off, but a huge 
mass of ice pack was apparent as far north as we could see. 
There seemed to be a broad belt of pack, at least sixty miles 
long, which was quite absent in January 1902. 
Obviously our exploration of Terra Nova Bay was impos- 
sible now, and it looked as if the ship would never reach us at 
Cape Roberts. With good luck we might cross the piedmont 
glacier to Cape Bernacchi in a few days, and Pennell might find 
it easier to reach us there, while we should at any rate be nearer 
to headquarters. There was also a week’s food there, and we 
had now only a fortnight’s sledging stores left. 
On February 4, Gran and I explored the sea ice below the 
piedmont for about four miles to the southward. We passed 
through the fifteen bergs in the little bay, and then got among 
the screw pack. This was covered with snow and afforded us 
extremely heavy going, as may be imagined. Near the shore 
was a perfect network of new cracks with the ice ‘ working’ all 
the time. Below the glacier wall was a deep tide crack four feet 
wide, but where some ice blocks had fallen in we managed to get 
across to fixed ice. As a result of this journey I decided to 
march first along the sea ice, and then climb up the piedmont at 
this point. 
Next morning I wrote a long letter to Pennell which we all 
signed. We made a depot on the highest point of the cape, and 
fixed a flag alongside with the letter in a little tin match-box. The 
journal for Captain Scott I left in the food cairn in my ditty-bag. 
I remorselessly weeded out every one’s gear. We took nothing 
but what we stood up in, and our notes and the instruments. 
Luckily most of Debenham’s and all Gran’s negatives were films, 
but I had to leave nearly all my plates and my cherished Brown- 
ing. I knew we had some bad crevassed country to traverse— 
thirty miles of this—and then I expected thirty miles of coast 
work, largely over moraine and rock, where we should have 
to portage the sledge and all our gear on our backs. This would 
bring us to Butter Point, whence our route was the same as in the 
previous summer. With a light sledge it was just possible we 
