30 4 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



he knew was 200 yards out on the sea-ice. He made a 

 great effort to steady himself and make for the Cape, but 

 any one who has stood in a blizzard will understand how 

 difficult that is. The snow was a blanket raging all round 

 him, and it was quite dark. He walked on, and found 

 nothing. 



Everything else is vague. Hour after hour he staggered 

 about : he got his hand badly frost-bitten : he found press- 

 ure : he fell over it : he was crawling in it, on his hands 

 and knees. Stumbling, tumbling, tripping, buffeted by 

 the endless lash of the wind, sprawling through miles of 

 punishing snow, he still seems to have kept his brain 

 working. He found an island, thought it was Inaccessible, 

 spent ages in coasting along it, lost it, found more pressure, 

 and crawled along it. He found another island, and the 

 same horrible, almost senseless, search went on. Under 

 the lee of some rocks he waited for a time. His clothing 

 was thin though he had his wind-clothes, and, a horrible 

 thought if this was to go on, he had boots on his feet 

 instead of warm finnesko. Here also he kicked out a hole 

 in a drift where he might have more chance if he were 

 forced to lie down. For sleep is the end of men who get 

 lost in blizzards. Though he did not know it he must now 

 have been out more than four hours. 



There was little chance for him if the blizzard con- 

 tinued, but hope revived when the moon showed in a 

 partial lull. It is wonderful that he was sufficiently active 

 to grasp the significance of this, and groping back in his 

 brain he found he could remember the bearing of the moon 

 from Cape Evans when he went to bed the night before. 

 The hut must be somewhere over there : this must be 

 Inaccessible Island ! He left the island and made in that 

 direction, but the blizzard came down again with added 

 force and the moon was blotted out. He tried to return to 

 the island and failed : then he stumbled on another island, 

 perhaps the same one, and waited. Again the lull came, 

 and again he set off, and walked and walked, until he re- 

 cognized Inaccessible Island on his left. Clearly he must 

 have been under Great Razorback Island and this is some 





