2 86 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [February 
binoculars. It seemed clear to me also — smoke, cross- 
trees, hull, and 3 masts, but after an hour or so we decided 
it was only a miraged crack in the Barne glacier. Our 
disappointment was very keen, though I am now not 
so sure that we did not really see the ship, some forty 
miles away. We could see the twenty-foot debris cones 
behind the hut quite easily on a clear day. 
I wrote the usual letter to Pennell. I had left two 
in Granite Harbour and two on the piedmont now, 
though it did not look as if any would ever be read. All 
through the loth we skirted New Harbour, finding a 
fairly feasible ice-foot between the granite-strewn slopes 
and the open water. We came across a Spratt's biscuit 
box here — which was evidently left by the 1902 expedition. 
We saved a considerable detour by crossing the head of 
the harbour on the sea ice and camped below the Kukri 
Hills, where I halted rather early to get a round of angles. 
We were licld up liere all next day by a snowstorm, 
which we spent reading and sewing. 
On tlic 1 2th we rounded the Kukri Hills, and when 
the ice-foot petered out we were luckily able to continue 
on the sea ice. We had lunch amid a colony of over 
forty seals, and then readied the southern side of the 
Ferrar Glacier, where we camped on a rather wet and 
muddy heap of ' road metal ' moraine. 
We were now safely round New Harbour, and curiously 
enough crossed the sea ice at the mouth of the Ferrar 
on the same da)^ of the year as when we nearly went out 
to sea on our first sledge journey. Henceforward we 
knew our route. We had plenty of food at the Butter 
