lviii WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
two seals with a greasy knife, losing the use of three fingers 
in the process, and saved the situation. 
But they also had their good, or less-bad, days: such 
was mid-winter night when they held food in their hands 
and did not want to eat it, for they were full: or when they 
got through the Te Deum without a hitch: or when they 
killed some penguins; or got a ration of mustard plaster 
from the medical stores. 
Never was a more cheerful or good-tempered party. 
They set out to see the humorous side of everything, and, if 
they could not do so one day, at any rate they determined to 
see to it the next. What is more they succeeded, and I have 
never seen a company of better welded men than that which 
joined us for those last two months in McMurdo Sound. 
On September 30 they started home—so they called it. 
This meant a sledge journey of some two hundred miles 
along the coast, and its possibility depended upon the pres- 
ence of sea-ice, which we have seen to have been absent at 
Evans Coves. It also meant crossing the Drygalski Ice 
Tongue, an obstacle which bulked very formidably in their 
imaginations during the winter. They reached the last rise 
of this glacier in the evening of October 10, and then saw 
Erebus, one hundred and fifty miles off. The igloo and the 
past were behind: Cape Evans and the future were in 
front—and the sea-ice was in as far as they could see. 
Dickason was half crippled with dysentery when they 
started, but improved. Browning, however, was still very 
ill, but now they were able to eat a ration of four biscuits 
a day and a small amount of pemmican and cocoa which 
gave him a better chance than the continual meat. As they 
neared Granite Harbour, a month after starting, his condi- 
tion was so serious that they discussed leaving him there 
with Levick until they could get medicine and suitable food 
from Cape Evans. 
But their troubles were nearly over, for on reaching 
Cape Roberts they suddenly sighted the depét left by 
Taylor in the previous year. They searched round, like 
dogs, scratching in the drifts, and found—a whole case of 
biscuits: and there were butter and raisins and lard. Day 
