CHAPTER V 

 DEPOT LAYING TO ONE TON CAMP 



Tuesday, January 24. — People were busy in the hut all 

 last night — we got away at 9 A.M. A boat from the Terra 

 Nova fetched the Western Party and myself as the ponies were 

 led out of the camp. Meares and Wilson went ahead of the 

 ponies to test the track. On board the ship I was taken in 

 to see Lillie's catch of sea animals. It was wonderful, quanti- 

 ties of sponges, isopods, pentapods, large shrimps, corals, &c., 

 &c. — but the piece de resistance was the capture of several 

 buckets full of cephalodiscus of which only seven pieces had been 

 previously caught. Lillie is immensely pleased, feeling that it 

 alone repays the whole enterprise. 



In the forenoon we skirted the Island, getting 30 and 40 

 fathoms of water north and west of Inaccessible Island. With 

 a telescope we could see the string of ponies steadily progressing 

 over the sea ice past the Razor Back Islands. As soon as we 

 saw them well advanced we steamed on to the Glacier Tongue. 

 The open water extended just round the corner and the ship 

 made fast In the narrow angle made by the sea ice with the 

 glacier, her port side flush with the surface of the latter. I 

 walked over to meet the ponies whilst Campbell went to investi- 

 gate a broad crack in the sea ice on the Southern Road. The 

 ponies were got on to the Tongue without much difficulty, then 

 across the glacier, and picketed on the sea ice close to the ship. 

 Meanwhile Campbell informed me that the big crack was 30 

 feet across: it was evident we must get past it on the glacier, 

 and I asked Campbell to peg out a road clear of cracks. Oates 

 reported the ponies ready to start again after tea, and they 

 were led along Campbell's road, their loads having already been 

 taken on the floe — all went well until the animals got down on 

 the floe level and Oates led across an old snowed-up crack. 

 His and the next pony got across, but the third made a jump 



