1911] 
RETURN OF THE FIRST PARTY 
5" 
do well to-day ; the wind has been coming up the valley. 
Turning this book # seems to have brought luck. We 
marched on till nearly 7 o'clock after a long lunch halt, 
and covered 19 J gco. miles, nearly 23 (stat.), rising 800 feet. 
This morning we came over a considerable extent of hard 
snow, then got to hard ice with patches of snow : a state 
of affairs which has continued all day. Pulling the 
sledges in crampons is no difficulty at all. At lunch 
Wilson and Bowers walked back 2 miles or so to try and 
find Bowers' broken sledgcmctcr, without result. During 
their absence a fog spread about us, carried up the valleys 
by easterly wind. Wc started the afternoon march in 
this fog very unpleasantly, but later it gradually drifted, 
and to-night it is very fine and warm. As the fog lifted 
we saw a huge line of pressure ahead ; I steered for a place 
where the slope looked smoother, and we arc camped 
beneath the spot to-night. We must be ahead of Shackle- 
ton's position on the 17th. All day wc have been admiring 
a wonderful banded structure of the rock ; to-night it is 
beautifully clear on Mount Darwin. 
I have just told off the people to return to-morrow 
night : Atkinson, Wright, Cherry-Garrard, and Keohane. 
All are disappointed — poor Wright rather bitterly, I fear. 
I dreaded this necessity of choosing — nothing could be 
more heartrending. I calculated our programme to 
start from 85 0 10' with 12 units of foodt and eight men. 
We ought to be in this position to-morrow night, less one 
* In the pocket journal, only one side of each page had been written 
on. Coming to the end of it, Scott reversed the book, and continued his 
entries on the empty backs of the pages. 
f A unit of food means a week's supplies for four men. 
