APPENDIX 619 
smoke rising everywhere from it, and full of pieces of floating ice, all 
going up N. to Ross Sea. 
March I. Ash Wednesday. The question for us was whether we 
could do anything to help them. There was no boat anywhere and 
there was no one to consult with, for everyone was on the floating 
floe as we believed, except Tcddic Evans, Forde, and Kcohanc, who 
with one pony were on their way back from Corner Camp. So 
we searched the Barrier for signs of their tent and then saw that there 
was a tent at Safety Camp, which meant evidently to us that they 
had returned. The obvious thing was to join up with them and go 
round to where the pony party was adrift, and sec if we could help them 
to reach the safe ice. So without waiting for breakfast we went off 
six miles to this tent. We couldn't go now by the Gap, for the ice 
by which we had reached land yesterday was now broken up in every 
direction and all on the move up the Strait. We had no choice 
now but to cross up by Crater Hill and down by Pram Point and 
over the pressure ridges and so on to the Barrier and off to Safety 
Camp. We couldn't possibly take a dog sledge this way, so we walked, 
taking the Alpine rope to cross the pressure ridges, which arc full of 
c re v asses . 
We got to this tent soon after noon and were astonished to find 
that not Tcddic Evans and his two seamen were here, but that Scott 
and Oatcs and Gran were in it and no pony with them. Tcddic Evans 
was still on his way back from Comer Camp and had not arrived. It 
was now for the first time that we understood how the accident had 
happened. When we had left Safety Camp yesterday with the dogs, 
the ponies began their march to follow us. but one of the ponies was 
so weak after the last blizzard and so obviously about to die that 
Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, and Crcan were sent on with the four capable 
ponies, while Scott, Oates, and Gran remained at Safety Camp till 
the sick pony died, which happened apparently that night. He was 
dead and buried when we got there. We found that Scott had that 
morning seen the open water up to the Barrier edge and had been m 
a dreadful state of mind, thinking that Mcares and 1, as well as the 
whole pony party, had gone out into the Strait on floating ice. He 
was therefore much relieved when we arrived and he learned for the 
first time where the pony party was trying to get to fast ice again. 
We were now given some food, which wc badly wanted, and while 
we were eating wc saw in the far distance a single man coming hurriedly 
along the edge of the Barrier ice from the direction of the catastrophe 
party and towards our camp. Gran went off on ski to meet him, and 
when he arrived wc found it was Crean, who had been sent off by Bowers 
with a note, unencumbered otherwise, to jump from one piece of floating 
ice to another until he reached the fast edge of the Barrier in order 
to let Capt. Scott know what had happened. This he did, of course 
not knowing that wc or anyone else had seen him go adrift, and being 
unable to leave the ponies and all his loaded sledges himself. Crcan 
