398 WITH SCOTT : THE SILVER LINING 



marching a longer stride, and we plugged on, hoping it would 

 hold firm another hour. However, at long length we began 

 to see details in the never-ending glacier wall on our left — icicles, 

 crevasses, and snowdrifts, — and at last could make out a feasible 

 slope up on to the Cape, and felt safe. I had cramp from the 

 pulling, and couldn't move for a time." Then it was a 

 distinct anticlimax, when we got to the top of the Cape, to 

 see that we had been misled by some queer shadows, that there 

 was firm ice for at least seven miles, and no sign of water 

 anywhere ! However, our experience at New Harbour made 

 both Debenham and myself realize the risk we were running 

 if the break-up of the ice, now long overdue, had eventuated. 



"Monday, the 15th January, 191 2 ; the day on which we 

 were to be relieved. 'Nary a relief, nor any sign of it, and 

 skuas squawking round us ! 



" We surveyed our cape expecting to find pools of water 

 in plenty, but there is none anywhere. Everything is covered 

 with snow except the big boulders and two or three patches 

 of gravel, of which we have annexed the largest. When we 

 arrived each gravel patch was inhabited by a pair of skua 

 gulls, which we may call White, Black, and Gray respec- 

 tively." 



We dispossessed the Blacks, and I put young " Blackie " 

 in a new nest — just as well made as his own — a little distance 

 away. Meanwhile Debenham set up the blubber stove on a 

 rock ledge near by, to get to which he crossed the Grays' nest 

 rather frequently. 



The chronicle of these three families have been done 

 into rhyme by the " Sledge Poet," and will be found to be 

 pathetic in the extreme. 



A TRUE ANTARCTIC TRAGEDY 



On the Cape by Granite Harbour, where the Glacier shrinks away, 

 Happy dwelt three pairs of Skuas, fighting gaily night and day. 

 Skua- White possessed but one egg. Young Skua-Black to walk begins ; 

 Skua-Gray was just expecting the arrival of some Twins ! 



To that Cape by Granite Harbour stagger in at bright midnight, 

 Blizzard-blown and Ice-tormented, Four exhausted men of might. 

 Boulders carpeted their refuge, each within a snow-field set, 

 Only three inviting tent-sites crowned the Cape . . . and they were 

 LET. 



