

i9] A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK 95 



to lead ponies down to it. It was plain that only the ponies could 

 go by it no loads. 



Since that everything has been rushed and a wonderful 

 day's work has resulted; we have got all the forage and food 

 sledges and equipment off to the ship the dogs will follow in 

 an hour, I hope, with pony harness, &o, that is everything to do 

 with our depot party, except the ponies. 



As at present arranged they are to cross the Cape and try 

 to get over the Southern Road * to-morrow morning. One 

 breathes a prayer that the Road holds for the few remaining 

 hours. It goes in one place between a berg in open water and 

 a large pool of the glacier face it may be weak in that part, 

 and at any moment the narrow isthmus may break away. We 

 are doing it on a very narrow margin. 



If all is well I go to the ship to-morrow morning after the 

 ponies have started, and then to Glacier Tongue. 



* The Southern Road was the one feasible line of communication between the new 

 station at C. Evans and the Discovery hut at Hut Point, for the rugged mountains and 

 crevassed ice slopes of Ross Island forbade a passage by land. The 'road' afforded level 

 going below the cliffs of the ice-foot, except where disturbed by the descending glacier, 

 and there it was necessary to cross the body of the glacier itself. It consisted of the more 

 enduring ice in the bays and the sea-ice along the coast, which only stayed fast for the 

 season. 



Thus it was of the utmost importance to get safely over the precarious part of the 

 'road' before the seasonal going-out of the sea-ice. To wait until all the ice should go 

 out and enable the ship to sail to Hut Point would have meant long uncertainty and 

 delay. As it happened, the Road broke up the day after the party had gone by. 



