THE DEPOT JOURNEY THE 
away, leaving the Alpine rope there to facilitate ascent 
(i.e. for any party returning to Hut Point with food). We 
then repacked the sledges and headed across the bay to- 
wards the Glacier Tongue, where we arrived after dark 
about 6 p.M. The young sea-ice was covered in a salt 
deposit which made it like pulling a sledge over treacle 
instead of ice, and it was very heavy going after the snow 
uplands. The Tongue was mostly hard blue ice, which 1s 
slipperiness itself, and crevassed every few yards. Most 
of these were bridged, but you were continually pushing 
a foot, or sometimes two, into nothingness, in the semi- 
darkness. None of us, however, went down to the extent 
of our harness. 
“‘ Arrived on the other side we struck a sheltered dip, 
where we decided to camp for something to eat. It was 
after 8 p.m. and I was for camping there for the night, as 
it seemed to me folly to venture upon a piece of untried 
newly frozen sea-ice in inky darkness, with a blizzard 
coming up behind us. Against this of course we were only 
five miles from Cape Evans, and though we had hardly any 
grub with us, not having anticipated the cliff or the saltness 
_ of the sea-ice, and having to set out to do the journey in one 
day, I thought hunger in a sleeping-bag better than lying 
out in a blizzard on less than one foot of young ice. 
“‘ After a meal we started off at 9.30 P.M.1n a snowy mist 
in which we could literally see nothing. It had fallen calm 
though, and at last we could see the outline of the nearest 
of the Dellbridge Islands called the Great Razorback ; 
our course lay for a smaller island ahead called the Little 
Razorback. As we neared the Little Razorback Island 
the snow hid everything ; in fact we could hardly see the 
island itself when we were right under it. It was impossible 
to go wandering on, so we had after all to camp on the sea- 
ice. ‘here was scarcely any snow to put on the valances of 
the tents, and the wet salt soaked the bags, and you knew 
that there was only about six or ten inches of precarious ice 
between you and the black waters beneath. Altogether I 
decided that I for one would lie awake in such an insecure 
camp. 
