FIRST TRIP TO HUT POINT 
121 
found much of the ice uncovered. Towards the Glacier 
Tongue there were some heaps of snow much wind-blown. 
As we rose the glacier we saw the Nimrod depot some 
way to the right and made for it. We found a good deal 
of compressed fodder and boxes of maize, but no grain 
crusher as expected. The open water was practically up 
to the Glacier Tongue. 
We descended by an easy slope \ mile from the end of 
the Glacier Tongue, but found ourselves cut off by an open 
crack some 15 feet across and had to get on the glacier 
again and go some \ mile farther in. We came to a second 
crack, but avoided it by skirting to the west. From this 
point we had an easy run without difficulty to Hut Point. 
There was a small pool -of open water and a longish crack 
off Hut Point. I got my feet very wet crossing the latter. 
We passed hundreds of seals at the various cracks. 
On the arrival at the hut to my chagrin we found it 
filled with snow. Shackleton reported that the door had 
been forced by the wind, but that he had made an entrance 
by the window and found shelter inside — other members 
of his party used it for shelter. But they actually went 
away and left the window (which they had forced) open ; 
as a result, nearly the whole of the interior of the hut is 
filled with hard icy snow, and it is now impossible to find 
shelter inside. 
Meares and I were able to clamber over the snow to some 
extent and to examine the neat pile of cases in the middle, 
but they will take much digging out. We got some asbestos 
sheeting from the magnetic hut and made the best shelter 
we could to boil our cocoa. 
