430 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 



ing our tent and camp equipment down and preparing a permanent picketing 

 line for the dogs. As the ice had all gone out of the Strait we were quite 

 cut off from any return to Cape Evans until the sea should again freeze 

 over, and this was not likely until the end of April. We rigged up a small 

 fireplace in the hut and found some wood and made a fire for an hour or so 

 at each meal, but as there was no coal and not much wood we felt we must 

 be economical with the fuel, and so also with matches and everything else, 

 in case Bowers should lose his sledge loads, which had most of the supplies 

 for the whole party to last twelve men for two months. The weather had 

 now become too thick for us to distinguish anything in the distance and we 

 remained in ignorance as to the party adrift until Saturday. I had also 

 lent my glasses to Captain Scott. This night I had first go in the bag, and 

 turned out to shiver for eight hours till breakfast. There was literally 

 nothing in the hut that one could cover oneself with to keep warm and we 

 couldn't run to keeping the fire going. It was very cold work. There were 

 heaps of biscuit cases here which we had left in Discovery days, and with 

 these we built up a small inner hut to live in. 



March 3. Spent the day in transferring dogs in couples from the Gap 

 to the hut. In the afternoon Teddie Evans and Atkinson turned up from 

 over the hills, having returned from their Corner Camp journey with one 

 horse and two seamen, all of which they had left encamped at Castle Rock, 

 three miles off on the hills. They naturally expected to find Scott here and 

 everyone else and had heard nothing of the pony party going adrift, but 

 having found only open water ahead of them they turned back and came to 

 land by Castle Rock slopes. We fed them and I walked half-way back to 

 Castle Rock with them. 



March 4. Meares, Gran, and I walked up Ski Slope towards Castle 

 Rock to meet Evans's party and pilot them and the dogs safely to Hut 

 Point, but half-way we met Atkinson, who told us that they had now been 

 joined by Scott and all the catastrophe party, who were safe, but who had 

 lost all the ponies except one a great blow. However, no lives were lost 

 and the sledge loads and stores were saved, so Meares and I returned to 

 Hut Point to make stables for the only two ponies that now remained, both 

 in wretched condition, of the eight with which we started. [Dr. Wilson's 

 Journal.] 



Note 15, p. 140. March 12. Thawed out some old magazines and 

 picture papers which were left here by the Discovery, and gave us very good 

 reading. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.] 



Note 16, p. 151. April 4. Fun over a fry I made in my new penquin 

 lard. It was quite a success and tasted like very bad sardine oil. [Dr. 

 Wilson's Journal.] 



Note 17, p. 169. ' Voyage of the Discovery/ chap. ix. ' The question 

 of the moment is, what has become of our boats? ' Early in the winter they 

 were hoisted out to give more room for the awning, and were placed in a 



