I9II] A DANGEROUS PASSAGE 251 
— but nearly forty feet of the floe was soft and mushy, so 
that through the thick snow you could not tell which was 
hard ice and which open water. There were seals all over 
this mushy stuff and we came unexpectedly on their holes 
nearly buried in snow. Debenham and Forde were 
looking down one to see the thickness of the mushy ice^ 
when a seal leaped out three feet, and as Forde pathetically 
put it " nearly frightened a loife out of me, Sorr ! " ' 
Meanwhile Gran had laid the poles up against the floe and 
left his bag just behind, when the mush gave way and in 
he went. He rescued his bag, and clinging to the poles he 
somehow managed to crawl up the ice foot, but he was 
pretty wet and soon very cold. 
We traversed some distance to the north, Gran on the 
ice foot and myself on the mush. At every footstep water 
oozed up, and this doubtful belt was forty feet wide. I 
managed to get to land, but we could not have got the 
sledge over. We returned to find Debenham had gone 
through also. So I determined to make our survey from 
where we left the sledge and to return immediately 
thereto. 
First, however, we had to get Gran off the ice foot. 
He threw his bag out towards us and as I went to get it 
I went in nearly to my waist. Luckily I managed to lean 
back on to less rotten mush. Then we lashed the bag 
ropes together and threw them to him. He threw the tent- 
poles on to the mush and then launched himself spread- 
eagle on the poles. The whole floe rocked up and down 
like a jelly, but the poles kept him up and he reached us 
without further mishap. 
