24 8 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [July 



the light returns. Meares thinks the others would not have 

 attacked him and imagines he has fallen into the water in some 

 seal hole or crack. In either case I'm afraid we must be re- 

 signed to another loss. It's an awful nuisance. 



Gran went to C. Royds to-day. I asked him to report on 

 the open water, and so he went on past the Cape. As far as 

 I can gather he got half-way to C. Bird before he came to thin 

 ice; for at least 5 or 6 miles past C. Royds the ice is old and 

 covered with wind-swept snow. This is very unexpected. In 

 the Discovery first year the ice continually broke back to the 

 Glacier Tongue : in the second year it must have gone out to 

 C. Royds very early in the spring if it did not go out in the 

 winter, and in the Nimrod year it was rarely fast beyond C. 

 Royds. It is very strange, especially as this has been the 

 windiest year recorded so far. Simpson says the average has ex- 

 ceeded 20 m.p.h. since the instruments were set up, and this 

 figure has for comparison 9 and 1 2 m.p.h. for the two Discovery 

 years. There remains a possibility that we have chosen an es- 

 pecially wind-swept spot for our station. Yet I can scarcely 

 believe that there is generally more wind here than at Hut Point. 



I was out for two hours this morning it was amazingly 

 pleasant to be able to see the inequalities of one's path, and 

 the familiar landmarks bathed in violet light. An hour after 

 noon the northern sky was intensely red. 



Monday, July 31. It was overcast to-day and the light not 

 quite so good, but this is the last day of another month, and 

 August means the sun. 



One begins to wonder what the Crozier Party is doing. It 

 has been away five weeks. 



The ponies are getting buckish. Chinaman squeals and 

 kicks in the stable, Nobby kicks without squealing, but with 

 even more purpose last night he knocked down a part of his 

 stall. The noise of these animals is rather trying at night 

 one imagines all sorts of dreadful things happening, but when 

 the watchman visits the stables its occupants blink at him with 

 a sleepy air as though the disturbance could not possibly have 

 been there ! 



There was a glorious northern sky to-day; the horizon was 

 clear and the flood of red light illuminated the under side of 

 the broken stratus cloud above, producing very beautiful bands 



