THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION 369 



At lunch we had dragged it about a mile and a half, and 

 we dried the runners again. 1 noted that my amber-coloured 

 glasses had a very pleasing effect ; they turned the most 

 gloomy clouds into a beautiful Italian sky. Everything in 

 the heavens is turned into blue and white, which is a great 

 change from the dismal views seen through the green goggles 

 of last year ! The relief through using them and the help 

 they give in picking out hollows in the surface is enormous, 

 but they fog up somewhat, of course, with perspiration after a 

 short time. 



As we were nearing our headquarters we had a great 

 discussion as to what had happened to the signal flag. Deben- 

 ham has excellent sight, and with the aid of the glasses he 

 swore that he could see the bamboo lying, broken down. 

 This seemed impossible to me, and I bet him one of our 

 usual is. 3^. dinners that it had not broken ! However, 

 after a time I saw myself that the thick and solid bamboo 

 pole had snapped. It was some consolation that his cairn and 

 flag at headquarters had blown down also ! 



We had some difficulty crossing the shear cracks near the 

 camp, for the snow had covered everything. I prodded 

 cautiously ahead when we seemed near the largest, and, 

 stepping on, went right in. I had been standing on the exact 

 edge and tested too far off! However, I escaped with a 

 slight wetting, which is the proud privilege of the leader, and 

 we crossed without difficulty. 



We reached our front door at 6.30, finding that the ice 

 had buckled in our absence, but had not cut us off from 

 shore. Dodging between two pressure ridges we reached the 

 ice-foot amid the huge storm-blocks of ice and unloaded with 

 great joy. Everything was buried in snow. 



The 40-lb. biscuit tin was hurled six feet off a rock, and 

 Granite Hut was half filled with snow. We cleared the 

 gravel patch and soon pitched our tent, and had a good hoosh 

 inside us. 



Shortly after we turned in it began to blow from the west, 

 a most unusual quarter. This cold plateau wind increased 

 very rapidly, and by 2 a.m. was blowing as hard as any wind 

 I ever felt in a tent. It bent in the stout poles of the tent 

 like whale-bone, and covered the sledge with a huge ridge of 

 hard snow. The door flapped so violently that some of us 



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