THE WINTER JOURNEY 2g 
ridges, and continued all day up and down, but met no 
crevasses. Indeed, we met no more crevasses and no more 
pressure. I think it was upon this day that a wonderful 
glow stretched over the Barrier edge from Cape Crozier: 
at the base it was the most vivid crimson it is possible to 
imagine, shading upwards through every shade of red to 
light green, and so into a deep blue sky. It is the most 
vivid red I have ever seen in the sky.” 4 
It was — 49 in the night and we were away early in 
—47. By mid-day we were rising Terror Point, opening 
Erebus rapidly, and got the first really light day, though 
the sun would not appear over the horizon for another 
month. I cannot describe what a relief the light was to us. 
We crossed the point outside our former track, and saw 
inside us the ridges where we had been blizzed for three 
days on our outward journey. 
The minimum was — 66° the next night and we were 
now back in the windless bight of Barrier with its soft snow, 
low temperatures, fogs and mists, and lingering settle- 
ments of the inside crusts. Saturday and Sunday, the 29th 
and 30th, we plugged on across this waste, iced up as usual 
but always with Castle Rock getting bigger. Sometimes it 
looked like fog or wind, butitalways clearedaway. Wewere 
getting weak, how weak we can only realize now, but we 
got in good marches, though slow—days when we did 44, 
74, 62, 64, 74 miles. On our outward journey we had been 
relaying and getting forward about 14 miles a day at this 
point. The surface which we had dreaded so much was 
not so sandy or soft as when we had come out, and the settle- 
ments were more marked. These are caused by a crust 
falling under your feet. Generally the area involved is some 
twenty yards or so round you, and the surface falls through 
an air space for two or three inches with a soft ‘crush’ 
which may at first make you think there are crevasses 
about. In the region where we now travelled they were 
much more pronounced than elsewhere, and one day, when 
Bill was inside the tent lighting the primus, I put my foot 
into a hole that I had dug. This started a big settlement : 
1 My own diary. 
