154 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [NOVEMBER 



Let us look round the tent and see how we have profited 

 by the previous season's sledging. In the roof is a larger venti- 

 lator. This, strangely enough, keeps us drier for the steam 

 from the cooker escapes instead of condensing on the bags and 

 tent. By special request our floor cloth is eighteen inches wider, 

 and now our cameras and instruments do not get buried in snow 

 as heretofore. But greatest blessing of all is an ordinary scrub- 

 bing-brush. This lies just inside the door where a man may 

 reach in and find it brush himself free from loose snow outside 

 the tent, then brush his boots when inside the tent and finally 

 sweep the floor cloth. It was wonderful what a difference this 

 made to our comfort for previously any little mass of snow first 

 melted on one's body or bag and then froze into a cake of ice 

 which had to be remelted before one was warm enough to sleep. 



Our chance of a rapid journey to Butter Point soon became 

 very slender. The snow drifted nearly to the peak of the tent 

 and drove in the windward side as a great swelling bulge. The 

 sledges were soon covered a foot deep. There we lay ' all that 

 day ' and read and talked and snoozed till 7.30 next morning. 



On the 8th we had done over 3 miles by lunch time and 

 could see the cracks in the glacier of Butter Point so clearly that 

 it seemed only five miles off. But it was a long twenty ! 



In the afternoon we did three more stages until we had been 

 on the go for eleven hours. Eight miles seemed a poor result 

 for such an expenditure of energy. 



At 4 o'clock on Thursday we were twenty-three miles from 

 the Hut. It was gloomy weather, but the surface had not been 

 so soft and we still hoped to reach Butter Point. However we 

 saw the sky darkening to south'ard. Gradually Minna Bluff 

 vanished, then Erebus clouded over, Castle Rock disappeared 

 and we knew that another blizzard was upon us. 



This time it lasted 36 hours. Early on Saturday morning 

 I could just see the Western Mountains. The drift covered 

 the door and of course the sledges were buried. We put up 

 a depot flag and started back at 4.30 A.M. for headquarters. 

 We had now only the sleeping-bags, cooker, tent and one day's 

 food. But owing to the surface, that 23 miles was stiff going. 

 I thought we should be in by noon, but it took us just twelve 

 hours to reach the dead penguins and refuse which unavoidably 

 characterise the vicinity of Cape Evans. 



