174 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Oct. 



On the night of the 29th we camped in a calm, with the 

 sun shining brightly, and had a fair view of grand hills that 

 surrounded the glacier basin, but now also we again observed 

 a fact which was not so cheering. On each occasion when we 

 were in this basin it was calm all about us, except in two 

 regions where the wind evidently swept down with great and 

 almost continuous violence. One of these was what we called 

 the ' Vale of Winds,' across which we had passed before, and 

 the other was unfortunately the north-west arm, up which we 

 proposed to go. We had never seen the latter without clouds 

 of drift pouring down over its surface, ' and we shrewdly 

 suspected that we were in for a pretty bad time when we 

 reached it. 



1 October 30. — We have grown a little careless in leaving 

 our things about outside the tent, and this morning we had a 

 lesson. Our sleeping-bags, with socks, finneskoes, and other 

 garments, lay scattered about on the ice whilst we were having 

 breakfast, when suddenly the wind swept down on us ; before 

 we could move everything was skidding away over the surface 

 of the ice. The moment we realised what was happening the 

 tents were empty and we were flying over the ice as fast as we 

 could after our lost garments. The incident would have been 

 extremely funny had it not involved the possibility of such 

 serious consequences. The sleeping-bags were well on 

 towards the steep fall of the north arm before they were 

 recovered, and by good luck the whole affair closed with the 

 loss of only a few of the lighter articles. 



' As soon as we had struggled back against the heavy wind 

 that was now blowing, we packed our sledges, put on our 

 crampons, and started onward ; but by this time the wind had 

 increased to a full gale, and we could hardly stand against it, 

 so we steered to the westward to get under shelter. This 

 brought us on a slope which gradually grew steeper till it 

 ended in the perpendicular side of the glacier. Proceeding 

 down as far as we thought safe, we entered the moraine and 

 pitched our camp again. I do not know what to make of this 

 moraine, which, starting from the side of the glacier, runs 



