212 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [APRIL 



A partial blizzard sprang up and we set sail; with this help 

 we made good 8 miles during the two hours of light remaining 

 to us. 



On March 31, snow was falling heavily and we got under 

 way in a very bad light. Our condition was bad, as owing to 

 the low temperatures we had got no sleep. We made good to 

 the Biscuit Depot, 15 miles from home, and then proceeded in 

 the dusk for one more mile. 



The next day, April i, with a strong following breeze and a 

 sail to help us, we reached Hut Point after dark. We were both 

 glad to be in and to get some sleep. By this time all hope of the 

 return of the Southern Party had been given up. Cape Evans 

 was separated from us by open water and it was then impossible 

 to get help from that quarter while, for all we knew, Campbell 

 and his party had still not been relieved and were somewhere 

 on the coast. I regarded their relief at this time as being of 

 prime importance. To effect this it was essential to get help from 

 Cape Evans, as at Hut Point we had two sick men and two men 

 who were capable of sledging at that time of the year. We 

 watched the Sound anxiously for any chance of being able to get 

 across the sea ice to Cape Evans. Almost every day it froze over 

 in a thin sheet, only to be swept away by high winds. The tem- 

 peratures recorded at this time of the year were 10 to 15 lower 

 at Hut Point than they had been in the previous season. 



On April 10 the two Bays, one between Glacier Tongue 

 and the Hutton Cliffs on the peninsula and the other between 

 the Glacier Tongue and Cape Evans, having frozen over, I de- 

 cided to make along the peninsula with Keohane and Demetri, 

 lower ourselves over the cliffs and make for Cape Evans. Leav- 

 ing Cherry-Garrard necessarily at Hut Point to look after the 

 dogs, we made our way along the peninsula and had only slight 

 difficulty in lowering ourselves and the sledge over the cliffs with 

 the Alpine rope. On this occasion our luck was most distinctly 

 in. We had reached this place about 10 miles from Cape Evans 

 at 2.30 in the afternoon; we then expected, owing to the bad 

 surface of new sea ice, to have a pull lasting well on to 12 mid- 

 night, instead of which the ice had a firm and even surface and 

 was devoid of any slush and ice-flowers such as are usual. We 

 set sail before a strong falling breeze, and all sitting on the 

 sledge had reached the Glacier Tongue in twenty minutes. We 



