SOUTH 
difficult to see where we coiild find safety. Perhaps it was 
fortunate that experience had inured us to the unpleasantness 
of sudden forced changes of camp. We took domi the tents 
and re-pitched them close against the high rocks at the seaward 
end of the spit, where large boulders made an uncomfortable 
resting-place. Snow was falling heavily. Then all hands had 
to assist in pulling the boats farther up the beach, and at this 
task we suffered a serious misfortune. Two of our four bags 
of clothing had been placed under the bilge of the James Caird, 
and before we realized the danger a wave had lifted the boat and 
carried the two bags back into the surf. We had no chance 
of recovering them. This accident did not complete the tale 
of the night's misfortunes. The big eight-man tent was blown 
to pieces in the early morning. Some of the men who had 
occupied it took refuge in other tents, but several remained in 
their sleeping-bags under the fragments of cloth until it was 
time to turn out. 
A southerly gale was blowing on the morning of April 18 
and the drifting snow was covering everything. The outlook 
was cheerless indeed, but much work had to be done and we 
could not yield to the desire to remain in the sleeping-bags. 
Some sea-elephants were lying about the beach above high-w^ater 
mark, and we killed several of the younger ones for their meat 
and blubber. The big tent could not be replaced, and in order to 
provide shelter for the men we turned the Dttdley Docker upside 
down and wedged up the weather side with boulders. We also 
lashed the painter and stern-rope round the heaviest rocks we 
could find, so as to guard against the danger of the boat being 
moved by the wind. The two bags of clothing were bobbing 
about amid the brash and glacier-ice to the windward side of 
the spit, and it did not seem possible to reach them. The gale 
continued all day, and the fine drift from the surface of the 
glacier was added to the big flakes of snow falling from the 
sky. I made a careful examination of the spit with the object 
of ascertaining its possibilities as a camping-ground. Apparently 
some of the beach lay above high-water mark and the rocks 
that stood above the shingle gave a measure of shelter. It 
would be possible to mount the snow-slope towards the glacier 
152 
