334 WITH SCOTT : THE SILVER LINING 



windward side of the tent, and the lee sides flapped violently 

 so that the " stocking " door vibrated incessantly. The snow 

 piled higher and higher, and under the ventilator collected a 

 great ball of ice. 



We were pretty comfortable very soon in spite of the 

 snow, which covered the sledges a foot deep. A rapid 

 journey to Butter Point was out of the question, and we 

 turned in hoping for better weather in the morning. The 

 temperature was +23 as I ascertained by swinging the sledge 

 thermometer. My last camp in April on Little Razorback 

 had been in — 23 , some 45 lower ! 



Nelson read Poe for awhile in his bag ; I read Browning. 

 We were rather jammed together in the drifted tent, and 

 poor Forde next morning said he had been too crushed to 

 sleep ! For myself I had never before slept so well at the 

 start of a trip. 



At 6 a.m. on the 8th it was still very thick to westward. 

 However, at 7.30 we turned out for breakfast, and after 

 digging up the sledges we got away about 9.40. It is 

 curious how long it took to start off every morning. With 

 no dressing or washing and a simple breakfast of two pots 

 of food, one would have expected a party to be ready in an 

 hour ; but two hours was by no means unusual after a blizzard. 



The heavy winds had compacted the snow, and also, I 

 believe, covered some of the sticky salty surface. At any 

 rate, we went along better than I had dared to hope, and 

 could do more than a mile an hour. 



I soon learnt that it was better to go a long way round 

 rather than cross new snow, and at lunch-time we had done 

 over three miles. Very stiff it made us ! The sky cleared, 

 and seemingly a short way ahead lay Butter Point, a face 

 of ice about 50 feet high in which small crevasses showed 

 quite clearly. Yet it was still 20 miles away ! To the south- 

 west was a group of dark castles. These were the little 

 volcanic Dailey Isles, which were miraged up into huge squat 

 keeps, very different from their true conical shape. 



Far to the north we could see the locale of one of the 

 wildest Antarctic exploits — the mighty crevasses near Mount 

 Bird. Macintosh and a mate managed to cross these during 

 Shackleton's expedition in 1908, after abandoning their tent 

 and losing their food in a crevasse. 



