THE DEPOT JOURNEY 175 
it behind us. I only had a thin balaclava and my ears were 
nearly nipped.” } 
Meanwhile those of us who had been left at Hut Point 
with the ponies and dogs journeyed out one afternoon to 
Safety Camp to get some more bales of compressed fodder. 
Easter Sunday we spent in a howling blizzard, which 
cleared in the afternoon sufficiently to see a golden sun 
sinking into a sea of purple frost-smoke and drift. 
I have it on record that we had tinned haddock this day 
for breakfast, made by Oates with great care, a biscuit and 
cheese hoosh for lunch, and a pemmican fry this evening, 
followed by cocoa with a tin of sweetened Nestlé’s milk in 
it, truly a great luxury. For the rest we mended our fin- 
nesko, and read Bleak House. Meares told us how the 
Chinese who were going to war with the Lolos (who are 
one of the Eighteen tribes on the borders of Thibet and 
China) tied the Lolo hostage to a bench, and, having cut 
his throat, caught the blood which dripped from it. Into 
this they dipped their flag, and then cut out the heart and 
liver, which the officers ate, while the men ate the rest ! 
The relief party arrived on April 18: “‘ We had spent 
such a happy week, just the seven of us, at the Discovery 
hut that I think, glad as we were to see the men, we would 
most of us have rather been left undisturbed, and I ex- 
pected that it would mean that we should have to move 
homewards, as it turned out. 
‘Meares is to be left in charge of the party which re- 
mains, namely Forde and Keohane of the old stagers, and 
Nelson, Day, Lashly and Dimitri of the new-comers. He is 
very amusing with the stores and is evidently afraid that 
the food which has just been brought in (sugar, self-raising 
flour, chocolate, etc.) will all be eaten up by those who 
have brought it. So we have dampers without butter, and 
a minimum of chocolate. 
‘Tuesday and Tuesday night was one of our few still, 
cold days, nearly minus thirty. The sea northwards from 
Hut Point, whence the ice had previously all gone out, 
1 Bowers. 
