I 3 2 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [FEBRUARY 



copied the Australian swagsman with a bundle in front nearly 

 balancing the main bulk behind. I found, as usual, that a strap 

 over the right shoulder (as used by the Italian harpist) suited 

 my convenience best. Very reluctantly we left our trusty cooker 

 behind, but Debenham carried his camera and half the food, while 

 I bore the remainder and a veritable goldminer's dish, to try for 

 gold in the gravels of Dry Valley. 



We marched down a narrow gap, cut through a great bar 

 of granite, and saw ahead of us quite a large lake, some three 

 miles long. It was of course frozen, but through the thick ice 

 covering we could see water plants, and below the steep cliffs 

 the water seemed very deep. We lunched at the east end of the 

 lake the first of many cold meals, and like all of them consisting 

 chiefly of biscuit and butter, varied by biscuit without butter. 

 However we had a cake of chocolate each afternoon and a little 

 cheese. 



Hereabouts the wide valley was filled with morainic debris, 

 and we passed close to several of tHe cliff glaciers. I was much 

 surprised to find that the bed of the valley now commenced to 

 rise, for we knew we were approaching the sea. We continued 

 to ascend and could see no way out of the trough. Immediately 

 ahead was a great rock barrier across the valley and evidently 

 several thousand feet high. However in the next few miles I 

 counted no less than thirteen dead seals which had somehow 

 come up from the coast, and I felt sure we could easily manage 

 anything they could traverse. [See Illustration, page 420.] 



Soon we began to open up a narrow defile down the north 

 side of the valley, but this outlet a sort of notch one thousand 

 feet deep scored in the bottom of the trough was apparently 

 barred by a tributary cliff glacier. 



It was now nearly six o'clock and my shoulder was aching 

 with my pack. Judging from the readiness of the others to drop 

 their loads, I concluded that they felt the same. But we all 

 had an idea that a few minutes later would give us a view of the 

 sea. 



We wondered if we could pass around the snout of this won- 

 derful tributary immediately in front. It opposed a face of ice 

 40 feet high, but just where it butted into the steep (south) slope 

 of the defile there was a gap. So narrow was this that one could 

 almost touch the ice face on one side and the side of the defile on 



