FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 117 



distance of thirty miles. I got a photo of the face of the 

 Tongue — showing queer little bulbous icicles where the swell 

 of the tide had licked them. The Tongue rises and falls with 

 the tide, and so there was no very definite crack between it 

 and the sea-ice at its end. Little did we think that this 

 century-old natural wharf was to be torn away from its 

 moorings a few weeks later ! 



Now that all chance of adding to our equipment had 

 passed, we found that several important matters required 

 attention. For instance, my ski-boots — in which I had to 

 traverse rocky slopes for six weeks — developed a hole thus 

 early in the campaign ! This apparently trivial matter bulked 

 very largely in the succeeding journey, and though they were 

 roughly cobbled on board and stiffened with all sorts and 

 conditions of nails — none being very suitable — they were a 

 constant source of worry. 



In the afternoon we approached Butter Point, passing 

 through a belt of " brash ice " to reach it. This curiously 

 named headland is where the 1902 party started to explore 

 the western valleys. Here a supply of butter was left for 

 the returning travellers to reward them with a toothsome 

 dish of fried seal's liver (if they had " first caught their 

 seal"). 



Butter Point is really the north-east end of a " piedmont " 

 glacier. It is a mass of ice — almost stagnant — which covers 

 a coastal shelf some five miles wide between the foothills and 

 the sea. The snow slopes rose rapidly to a hundred feet or 

 so, and then more gradually to five hundred feet. Many 

 unsuccessful attempts to fix an ice-anchor in the hard snow 

 (covering the glacier) resulted in our moving north a short 

 distance, where a grip was obtained when the anchors were 

 carried some two hundred yards inshore. 



On the summit of the snow ridge, about half a mile away, 

 we saw the pole of the depot left by the 1907 expedition. 

 This was now visited by a sledge party to depot provisions 

 for the forthcoming northern journey in spring. 



In the meantime our two sledges were lowered on to the 

 ice, and packed in readiness for our start. The sledges differed 

 in size, one being twelve feet long, and the other only nine 

 feet. The latter Evans evidently regarded as the apple of his 

 eye, but weight for weight it was much less efficient than the 



