THE DEPOT JOURNEY roe 
weeks’ provisions for men and animals ; to go forward for 
about fourteen days, depot two weeks’ provisions and 
return. Most unfortunately Atkinson would have to be 
left behind with Crean to look after him. He had chafed 
his foot, and the chafe had suppurated. To his great dis- 
appointment there was no alternative but to lie up. Luckily 
we had another tent, and there was the cooker and primus 
we had dug out of Shackleton’s tent. Poor Crean was to 
spend his spare time in bringing up loads from the Fodder 
Depét to Safety Camp and, worse still from his point of 
view, dig a hole downwards into the Barrier for scientific 
observations | 
Weleft the following morning, February 2, and marched 
on a patchy surface for five miles (Camp 4). The tem- 
perature was above zero and Scott decided to see whether 
the surface was not better at night. On the whole, it is 
problematical whether this is the case—we came to thecon- 
clusion later that the ideal surface for pulling a sledge on 
ski was found at a temperature of about + 16°. But there 
is no doubt whatever that ponies should do their work at 
night, when the temperature is colder, and rest and sleep 
when the sun has its greatest altitude and power. And so 
we camped and turned in to our sleeping-bags at 4 P.M. 
and marched again soon after midnight, doing five miles 
before and five miles after lunch: lunch, if you please, being 
about I a.M., and a very good time, for just then the day- 
light seemed to be thin and bleak and one always felt the 
cold. 
Our road lay eastwards through the Strait, some twenty- 
five milesin width, whichruns between the low, rather unin- 
teresting scarp of White Island to the south, and the beau- 
tiful slopes of Erebus and Terror to the north. This part 
of the Barrier is stagnant, but the main stream in front of 
us, unchecked by land, flows uninterruptedly northwards 
towards the Ross Sea. Only where the stream presses 
against the Bluff, White Island and, most important of all, 
Cape Crozier, and rubs itself against the nearly stationary 
ice upon which we were travelling, pressures and rendings 
take place, forming some nasty crevasses. It was intended 
