i9vl CHERRY-GARRARD'S ACCOUNT 35 



cooker and all essential gear, momentarily expecting the weather 

 to break on us again. It looked as thick as could be and close at 

 hand in the south. 



We discussed the position, and came to the conclusion that as 

 our oil had now run down to one can only, and as we couldn't 

 afford to spend time trying tc fix up an improvised blubber stove 

 in a roofless hut, we ought to return to Cape Evans. 



It was disappointing to have seen so very little of the Em- 

 peror penguins, but it seemed to me unavoidable, and that we had 

 attempted too difficult an undertaking without light in the 

 winter. 



I had also some doubt as to whether our bags were not 

 already in such a state as might make them quite unusable should 

 we meet with really low temperatures again in our journey home. 



I therefore decided to start for Hut Point the next day. To 

 this end we sorted out all our gear, and made a depot in a corner 

 of the stone hut of all that we could usefully leave there for use 

 on a future occasion. This depot I fixed up finally with Cherry 

 the next morning while Bowers packed up the sledge afe our tent. 

 We put rocks on our depot and the nine-foot sledge, and the 

 pick, with a matchbox containing a note tied to the handle, where 

 it could not be missed. We also fixed up bamboos round the 

 walls to attract attention to the spot. 



[Mr. Cherry-Garrard's account of this episode must be 

 quoted in full : 



All that day and night it blew n, with absolutely no real 

 lull ; what the wind was in the gusts we shall never know, it was 

 something appalling. We quite lost count of time, but Sunday 

 morning it was just the same. This was Bill's birthday. 



About now we began to realise that the roof must go. The 

 stones holding the door end (leeward) of the roof began to 

 work: drift was coming in, and the place where I had slit up the 

 roof to fold it in over the door was obviously weak: the food- 

 bags did something to remedy this. Bill told us he thought that 

 to turn over, flaps under, would give us our best chance. We 

 could do nothing, and lay in our bags until Birdie told us that the 

 roof was flapping more : he was out of his bag trying to hold the 

 rocks firm, and I and Bill were sitting up in ours pressing against 

 them with a bamboo. Suddenly the roof went first, I believe, 

 over the door, splitting into seven or eight strips along the lee- 



