ACROSS SOUTH GEORGIA 
and no sleeping-bags, and our clothes had endured much rough 
usage and had weathered many storms during the last ten 
months. In the distance, down the valley below us, we could 
see tussock-grass close to the shore, and if we could get down 
it might be possible to dig out a hole in one of the lower snow- 
banks, line it with dry grass, and make ourselves fairly com- 
fortable for the night. Back we went, and after a detour we 
reached the top of another ridge in the fading light. After a 
glance over the top I turned to the anxious faces of the two 
men behind me and said, Come on, boys." Within a minute 
they stood beside me on the ice-ridge. The surface fell away 
at a sharp incline in front of us, but it merged into a snow- 
slope. We could not see the bottom clearly o\viiig to mist 
and bad light, and the possibility of the slope ending in a sheer 
fall occurred to us ; but the fog that was creeping up behind 
allowed no time for hesitation. We descended slowly at first, 
cutting steps in the hard snow ; then the surface became softer, 
indicating that the gradient was less severe. There could be 
no turning back now, so we unroped and slid in the fashion of 
youthful days. When we stopped on a snow-bank at the foot 
of the slope we found that we had descended at least 900 ft. 
in two or three minutes. We looked back and saw the grey 
fingers of the fog appearing on the ridge, as though reaching 
after the intruders into untrodden wilds. But we had escaped. 
The country to the east was an ascending snow upland 
dividing the glaciers of the north coast from the outfalls of 
the south. We had seen from the top that our course lay 
between two huge masses of crevasses, and we thought that 
the road ahead lay clear. This belief and the increasing cold 
made us abandon the idea of camping. We had another meal 
at 6 p.m. A little breeze made cooking difl&cult in spite of 
the shelter provided for the cooker by a hole. Crean was the 
cook, and Worsley and I lay on the snow to windward of the 
lamp so as to break the wind with our bodies. The meal over, 
we started up the long, gentle ascent. Night was upon us, 
and for an hour we plodded along in almost complete darkness, 
watching warily for signs of crevasses. Then about 8 p.m. 
a glow which we had seen behind the jagged peaks resolved 
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