5 i 8 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



Wilson's leg is better, but might easily get bad again, and 

 Evans' fingers. . . . We have managed to get off" 1 7 miles. 

 The extra food is certainly helping us, but we are getting 

 pretty hungry. The weather is already a trifle warmer, the 

 altitude lower and only 80 miles or so to Mount Darwin. 

 It is time we were off the summit. — Pray God another four 

 days will see us pretty well clear of it. Our bags are getting 

 very wet and we- ought to have more sleep." * 



They had been spending some time in finding the old 

 tracks. But they had a good landfall for the depot at the 

 top of the glacier and on February 3 they decided to push 

 on due north, and to worry no more for the present about 

 tracks and cairns. They did 1 6 miles that day. Wilson's 

 diary runs : " Sunny and breezy again. Came down a 

 series of slopes, and finished the day by going up one. 

 Enormous deep-cut sastrugi and drifts and shiny egg-shell 

 surface. Wind all S.S.E.ly. To-day at about 1 1 p.m. we 

 got our first sight again of mountain peaks on our eastern 

 horizon. . . . We crossed the outmost line of crevassed 

 ridge top to-day, the first on our return. 



"February 4. 18 miles. Clear cloudless blue sky, sur- 

 face drift. During forenoon we came down gradual descent 

 including 2 or 3 irregular terrace slopes, on crest of one of 

 which were a good many crevasses. Southernmost were 

 just big enough for Scott and Evans to fall in to their 

 waists, and very deceptively covered up. They ran east 

 and west. Those nearer the crest were the ordinary broad 

 street-like crevasses, well lidded. In the afternoon we again 

 came to a crest, before descending, with street crevasses, 

 and one we crossed had a huge hole where the lid had 

 fallen in, big enough for a horse and cart to go down. 

 We have a great number of mountain tops on our right 

 and south of our beam as we go due north now. We are 

 now camped just below a great crevassed mound, on a 

 mountain top evidently." 



"February 5. 18.2 miles. We had a difficult day, get- 

 ting in amongst a frightful chaos of broad chasm-like cre- 

 vasses. We kept too far east and had to wind in and out 



1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 559. 



