168 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
getting covered in spray during the operation—our wind 
clothes very wet. This is the third gale from the South 
since our arrival here (7.e. in 24 weeks). Any one of these 
would have rendered the Bay impossible for a ship, and, 
therefore, it is extraordinary that we should have entirely 
escaped such a blow when the Discovery was in it in 
OOD, i 
It is difficult to see long distances across open water at 
this time of year because the comparatively warm water 
throws up into the air a fog, known as frost-smoke. If 
there is a wind this smoke is carried over the surface of the 
sea, but if calm the smoke rises and forms a dense curtain. 
Standing on Arrival Heights, which form the nail of the 
finger-like Peninsula on which we now lived, we could see 
the four islands which lie near Cape Evans, and a black 
smudge in the face of the glaciers which descend from 
Erebus, which we knew to be the face of the steep slope 
above Cape Evans, afterwards named The Ramp. But, 
for the present, our comfortable hut might have been 
thousands of miles away for all the good it was tous. As 
soon as the wind fell calm the sea was covered by a thin 
layer of ice, in twenty-four hours it might be four or five 
inches thick, but as yet it never proved strong enough to 
resist the next blizzard. In March the ice to the south was 
safe ; there was appearance of ice in the two bays at the 
foot of Erebus’ slopes in the beginning of April. 
We treated newly formed ice with far too little respect. 
It was on April 7 that Scott asked whether any of us would 
like to walk northwards over the newly formed ice towards 
Castle Rock. We had walked about two miles, the ice 
heaving up and down as we went, dodging the open pools 
and leads to the best of our ability, when Taylor went right 
in. Luckily he could lever himself out without help, and 
returned to the hut with all speed. We prepared to cross 
this ice to Cape Evans the next day, but the whole of it 
went out in the night. On another occasion we were pre- 
pared to set out the following morning, but the ice on 
1 Scott’s Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 207. 
