138 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [FEBRUARY 



crossing cracks where the oozy snow and creaking showed how 

 insecure was our passage. Soon after we reached the Butter 

 Point piedmont the whole bay ice moved off in great floes to the 

 northward, so that seven miles of it had broken away since the 

 ship landed us. It is quite impossible to tell whether sea ice is 

 solid or not, for the first cracks are so small and the elevation 

 of the eye so little that the only safe way to traverse sea ice 

 in late summer is to keep off it! 



We expected to find the Butter Point piedmont an easy level 

 surface, but of its kind it was the worst I met with down South. 

 All the afternoon we were plugging up an interminable snow 

 slope. Just as one got one's foot braced to draw the sledges 

 through the clinging snow, it would break through a crust and 

 sink nearly to the knee. Then we would meet a few yards of 

 firmer surface and bet whether we could make a dozen steps 

 before the soft ' mullock ' started again. Even worse was the 

 jar when you expected deep snow and found a firm crust one 

 inch below the surface. I carried a pedometer, and when we 

 had done 27,500 of these paces I felt we had earned our supper. 



Blue Glacier now confronted us. P.O. Evans and I pros- 

 pected across the snout and were glad to find that though it 

 showed crevasses in places, yet it was so free from snow that we 

 should have no great difficulty in crossing them. They curved 

 round parellel to the coast, and of course lay along the line 

 of our march, so that we came on to them end-on and fell in 

 several times. But by the evening of the I5th we were safely 

 camped in the rugged ice south of the crevassed portion. Evans 

 as usual enlivened us with navy yarns. He illustrated the kind- 

 ness of the sailorman by a story of a mate of his who started 

 a poultry-farm. To Jack's disgust the ducks in his yard had no 

 belief in altruism and with their broad bills gave the hens no 

 chance. ' So,' said Taff Evans, ' evenchooly he gets a file and 

 trims their bills like the hens, and then everything went all 

 sprowsy ! ' 



If any one had asked us what we should like sent post 

 haste from civilisation there would have been a unanimous yell 

 of ' Boots! ' The rough scrambling over the rocks and jagged 

 ice of the past fortnight and the alternate soaking and freezing 

 they had experienced had ruined mine completely. Deep con- 

 strictions formed in the leather across the toe and behind the 



