er on I began to have misgivings; the cracks became too
frequent to be pleasant, and although the ice was from five to ten feet
thick, one does not like to see water squelching between them, as we did
later. It spells motion, and motion on sea-ice means breakage. I shoved
on in the hope of getting on better ice round the cape, but at last came
a moving crack, and that decided me to turn back. We could see nothing
owing to the black mist, everything looked solid as ever, but I knew
enough to mistrust moving ice, however solid it seemed. It was a beastly
march back: dark, gloomy and depressing. The beasts got more and more
down in their spirits and stopped so frequently that I thought we would
never reach the seal crack. I said to Cherry, however, that I would take
no risks, and camp well over the other side on the old sound ice if we
could get there. This we managed to do eventually. Here there was soft
snow, whereas on the sea side of the crack it was hard: that is the
reason we lost the dogs' tracks at once on crossing. Even over this crack
I thought it best to march as far in as possible. We got well into the
bay, as far as our exhausted ponies would drag, before I camped and
threw up the walls, fed the beasts, and retired to feed ourselves. We had
only the primus with the missing cap and it took over 11/2 hours to heat up
the water; however, we had a cup of pemmican. It was very dark, and I
mistook a small bag of curry powder for the cocoa bag, and made cocoa
with that, mixed with sugar; Crean drank his right down before
discovering anything was wrong. It was 2 P.M. before we were ready to
turn in. I went out and saw everything quiet: the mist still hung to the
west, but you could see a good mile and all was still. The sky was very
dark over the Strait though, the unmistakable sign of open water. I
turned in. Two and a half hours later I awoke, hearing a noise. Both my
companions were snoring, I thought it was that and was on the point of
turning in again having seen that it was only 4.30, when I heard the
noise again. I thought--'my pony is at the oats!' and went out.

"I cannot describe either the scene or my feelings. I must leave those to
your imagination. We were in the middle of a floating pack of broken-up
ice. The tops of the hills were visible, but all below was thin mist and
as far as the eye could see there was nothing solid; it was all broken
up, and heaving up and down with the swell. Long black tongues of