108 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
A few hundred more blizzards had swept over it since 
those days, but it was all just the same, even to Ferrar’s 
little stakes placed across the glacierets to mark their move- 
ment, more, even to the footsteps still plainly visible on the 
slopes. 
The ponies were dragging up to 900 lbs. each these 
days, and though they did not seem to be unduly distressed, 
two of them soon showed signs of lameness. This caused 
some anxiety, but the trouble was mended by rest. On the 
whole, though the surface was hard, I think we were giving 
them too much weight. 
The sea-ice off Hut Point and Observation Hill was 
already very dangerous, and had we then had the experience 
and knowledge of sea-ice with which we can now look back, 
it is probable that we should not have slept so easily upon 
its surface. Parties travelling to Hut Point and beyond in 
summer must keep well out from the Point and Cape 
Armitage. But all haste was being made to transport the 
necessary stores on to the Barrier surface, where a big home 
depét could be made, so far as we could judge, in safety. 
The pressure ridges in the sea-ice between Cape Armitage 
and Pram Point, which are formed by the movement of the 
Barrier, were large, and in some of the hollows countless 
seals were playing in the water. Judging by the size of 
these ridges and by the thickness of this ice when it broke 
up, the ice south of Hut Point was at least two years 
old. 
I well remember the day we took the first of our loads 
on to the Barrier. I expect we were all a little excited, for 
to walk upon the Barrier for the first time was indeed an 
adventure: what kind of surface was it, and how about 
these beastly crevasses of which we had read so much ? 
Scott was ahead, and so far as we could see there was 
nothing but the same level of ice all round—when sud- 
denly he was above us, walking up the sloping and quite 
invisible drift. A minute after and our ponies and sledges 
were up and over the tide crack, and beneath us soft and 
yielding snow, very different from the hard wind-swept sur- 
face of the frozen sea, which we had just left. Really it was 
