58 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Dec. 



of interest have passed rapidly ; and now the sun is well to the 

 south, and from all the coast is rising the thin night mist ex- 

 actly as it does after a hot day in England, so we are preparing 

 to settle down in our sleeping-bags, in the hope that to-morrow 

 may prove equally fine. 



* A great relief comes to us in this distant spot at finding 

 that our slight change of diet is already giving a beneficial 

 result ; late to-night we had another examination of our 

 scurvy symptoms, and there is now no doubt that they are 

 lessening.' 



'■December 29. — Instead of our proposed advance we have 

 spent the day in our tent, whilst a strong southerly blizzard has 

 raged without. It is very trying to the patience, and to-night, 

 though the wind has dropped, the old well-known sheet of 

 stratus cloud is closing over us, and there is every prospect of 

 another spell of overcast weather which will obscure the land. 

 This afternoon for the third time we have seen the heavens 

 traced with bands and circles of prismatic light, and, if any- 

 thing, the phenomenon has been more complicated than 

 before ; it was a very beautiful sight. 



' Only occasionally to-day have we caught glimpses of the 

 land, and it is not inspiriting to lie hour after hour in a sleeping- 

 bag, chill and hungry, and with the knowledge that one is so 

 far from the region of plenty.' 



' December 30. — We got up at six this morning, to find a 

 thick fog and nothing in sight ; to leave the camp was out of 

 the question, so we packed up our traps and started to march 

 to the S.S.W. This brought us directly towards the mouth of 

 the strait, and after an hour we found ourselves travelling over 

 a disturbed surface with numerous cracks which seemed to 

 radiate from the cape we were rounding. After stumbling on 

 for some time, the disturbance became so great that we were 

 obliged to camp. If the fates are kind and give us another 

 view of the land, we are far enough advanced now to see the 

 inner recesses of our strait. 



' After our modest lunch Wilson and I started off on ski to 

 the S.S.W. We lost sight of the camp almost immediately, 



