rt of cave, we could see the legs and lower halves of dead Emperor
chicks hanging through, and even in one place a dead adult. I hope
to make a picture of the whole quaint incident, for it was a corner
crammed full of Imperial history in the light of what we already knew,
and it would otherwise have been about as unintelligible as any group
of animate or inanimate nature could possibly have been. As it is, it
throws more light on the life history of this strangely primitive bird.

We were joking in the boat as we rowed under these cliffs and saying
it would be a short-lived amusement to see the overhanging cliff part
company and fall over us. So we were glad to find that we were rowing
back to the ship and already 200 or 300 yards away from the place and
in open water when there was a noise like crackling thunder and a huge
plunge into the sea and a smother of rock dust like the smoke of an
explosion, and we realised that the very thing had happened which we
had just been talking about. Altogether it was a very exciting row,
for before we got on board we had the pleasure of seeing the ship
shoved in so close to these cliffs by a belt of heavy pack ice that
to us it appeared a toss-up whether she got out again or got forced
in against the rocks. She had no time or room to turn and get clear
by backing out through the belt of pack stern first, getting heavy
bumps under the counter and on the rudder as she did so, for the ice
was heavy and the swell considerable. [Dr. Wilson's Journal.]

_Note_ 9, _p_. 81.--Dr. Wilson writes in his Journal: _January_
14. He also told me the plans for our depot journey on which we shall
be starting in about ten days' time. He wants me to be a dog driver
with himself, Meares, and Teddie Evans, and this is what I would have
chosen had I had a free choice at all. The dogs run in two teams and
each team wants two men. It means a lot of running as they are being
driven now, but it is the fastest and most interesting work of all,
and we go ahead of the whole caravan with lighter loads and at a faster
rate; moreover, if any traction except ourselves can reach the top
of Beardmore Glacier, it will be the dogs, and the dog drivers are
therefore the people who will have the best chance of doing the top
piece of the ice cap at 10,000 feet to the Pole. May I be there! About
this time next year may I be there or there-abouts! With so many
young bloods in the heyday of youth and strength beyond my own I