122 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [January 
There was something too depressing in finding the 
old hut in such a desolate condition. I had had so much 
interest in seeing all the old landmarks and the huts 
apparently intact. To camp outside and feel that all 
the old comfort and cheer had departed, was dreadfully 
heartrending. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. It 
seems a fundamental expression of civilised human senti- 
ment that men who come to such places as this should 
leave what comfort they can to welcome those who 
follow, and finding that such a simple duty had been 
neglected by our immediate predecessors oppressed me 
horribly. 
Monday, January 16. — We slept badly till the morning 
and, therefore, late. After breakfast we went up the hills ; 
there was a keen S.E. breeze, but the sun shone and my 
spirits revived. There was very much less snow every- 
where than I had ever seen. The ski run was completely 
cut through in two places, the Gap and Observation Hill 
almost bare, a great bare slope on the side of Arrival 
Heights, and on top of Crater Heights an immense bare 
table-land. How delighted we should have been to see 
it like this in the old days ! The pond was thawed and the 
confervae green in fresh water. The hole which we had 
dug in the mound in the pond was still there, as Meares 
discovered by falling into it up to his waist and getting 
very wet. 
On the south side we could see the Pressure Ridges 
beyond Pram Point as of old — Horseshoe Bay calm and 
unprcsscd — the sea ice pressed on Pram Point and along 
the Gap ice foot, and a new ridge running around 
