THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION 



337 



that we had left the can of spirits behind. This fluid was 

 necessary to start the primus stove in low temperatures, so 

 Gran and I tramped back to the hut for it. It was a stiff 

 walk, for we were afraid of thick black clouds to the south and 

 the wind rose to sixty miles an hour, luckily without drift. 

 After some supper I turned into my bunk for the last time 

 that year. Gran slept in the bunk above, and as the result of 

 some salmon and a recent perusal of Jules Verne's " Mysterious 

 Island," suffered from nightmare. He explained next morning 

 that he thought Erebus had overwhelmed the Cape with red- 

 hot lava, wherein Simpson had been engulfed, but the 

 geologists had calmly climbed up to the crater ! Was this 

 a forecast of his own escape on the summit a year later, when 

 Gran was nearly choked by the fumes ? 



We found the spirits where we had been packing the 

 sledges, and trudged out to the tents to find the others having 

 breakfast. However, we started at 10 a.m. and did nine 

 miles by 5.30. I camped early to prevent Debenham over- 

 straining his leg. 



On the 16th we awoke to find snow falling, though there 

 was not much wind. We had been so much delayed that I 

 determined to try marching through the thick weather lying 

 ahead of us. Although we were fairly close to the magnetic 

 pole, and the compass consequently had very little " horizontal 

 pull," yet I determined to try steering by it, especially as we 

 had a spare man to steer us. We wanted to go almost due 

 west, but the compass direction, owing to the variation, was 

 S. 65 E. ! So Debenham marched some fifty yards behind 

 us, and signalled to Nelson, who repeatedly turned to observe 

 him. Meanwhile I tried to steer a course by any object which 

 I could see looming up through the mist ahead. We ser- 

 pentined considerably at first, but moved steadily westward. 

 Our surprise and gratification may be imagined when we 

 suddenly saw footprints ahead of us, and realized that we had 

 exactly hit on our route of the week before. We had not 

 seen any trace of our track since leaving the hut, and this 

 encounter was as marvellous as finding a needle in the pro- 

 verbial bottle of hay. On we went into the thick of it till 

 1 p.m. My eyes soon tired with looking at huge crags, which 

 turned out to be ice splinters twenty yards away. Finally the 

 western hills appeared, and we were all on the qui vive to be 



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