426 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



window over our heads. Atkinson shouted ' Hullo ! ' and 

 cried, ' Cherry, they're in.' Keohane said, ' Who's cook ? ' 

 Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut 

 to give them light, and we all rushed out. But there was 

 no one there. It was the nearest approach to ghost work 

 that I have ever heard, and it must have been a dog which 

 sleeps in that window. He must have shaken himself, hit- 

 ting the window with his tail. Atkinson thought he heard 

 footsteps I" 1 



On Wednesday, March 27, Atkinson started out on 

 to the Barrier with one companion, Keohane. During the 

 whole of this trip the temperatures were low, and both men 

 obtained but little sleep, finding of course that a tent occu- 

 pied by two men only is a very cold place. The first two 

 days they made nine miles each day, on March 29 they 

 pushed on in thick weather for eleven miles, when the 

 weather cleared enough to show them that they had got 

 into the White Island pressure. On March 30 they reached 

 a point south of Corner Camp, when "taking into con- 

 sideration the weather, and temperatures, and the time of 

 the year, and the hopelessness of finding the party except 

 at any definite point like a depot, I decided to return from 

 here. We depoted the major portion of a week's provisions 

 to enable them to communicate with Hut Point in case they 

 should reach this point. At this date in my own mind I 

 was morally certain that the party had perished, and in fact 

 on March 29 Captain Scott, 11 miles south of One Ton 

 Depot, made the last entry in his diary." 2 



" They arrived back on April 1. Yesterday evening at 

 6.30 p.m. Atkinson and Keohane arrived. It was pretty 

 thick here and blowing too, but they had had a fair day on 

 the Barrier. They had been out to Corner Camp and eight 

 miles farther. Their bags were bad, their clothes very bad 

 after six days : they must have had minus forties constantly. 

 It is a moral certainty that to go farther south would serve 

 no purpose, and for two men would be a useless risk. They 

 did quite right to come back. They are much in want of 



1 My own diary. 

 2 Atkinson in Scott's Last Expedition, vol. ii. p. 309. 



