LAND 97 
The collie bitch which we have brought down for breeding 
purposes wanders about the camp. A penguin is standing 
outside my tent, presumably because he thinks he is going 
to moult here. A seal has just walked up into the horse 
lines—there are plenty of Weddell and penguins and 
whales. On board we have Nigger and a blue Persian 
kitten, with rabbits and squirrels. The whole place teems 
with life. 
“Franky Drake is employed all day wandering round 
for ice for watering the ship. Yesterday he had madea pile 
out on the floe, and the men wanted to have a flag put on 
it, and have it photographed, and called ‘Mr. Drake’s 
Furthest South’ !’”! 
January 25 was fixed as the day upon which twelve 
of us, with eight ponies and the two dog-teams, were to 
start south to lay a depot upon the Barrier for the Polar 
Journey. Scott was of opinion that the bays between us and 
the Hut Point Peninsula would freeze over in March, 
probably early in March, and that we should most of us 
get back to Cape Evans then. At the same time the 
ponies could not come down over the cliffs of this tongue 
of land, and preparations had to be made for a lengthy 
stay at Hut Point for them and their keepers. For this 
purpose Scott meant to use the old Discovery hut at Hut 
Point.? 
On January 15 he took Meares and one dog-team, and 
started for Hut Point, which was fifteen statute miles to 
the south of us. They crossed Glacier Tongue, finding 
upon it a depot of compressed fodder and maize which 
had been left by Shackleton. The open water to the west 
nearly reached the Tongue. 
On arrival at the hut Scott was shocked to find it full 
of snow and ice. This was serious, and, as we found after- 
wards the drifted snow had thawed down into ice: the 
whole of the inside of this hut was a big ice block. In the 
middle of this ice was a pile of cases left by the Discovery 
asa depot. They were, we knew, full of biscuit. 
“There was something too depressing in finding the 
1 My own diary. 2 See Introduction, p. xxxiv. 
H 
