fed me
up to see the walls so recently occupied by our ponies, and I was glad to
leave. The afternoon march was interminable; it seemed as if we would
never reach the coast. At last we came to the Pram Point Pressure Ridges
where the Barrier joins the peninsula to eastward of Cape Armitage. They
are waves of ice up to 20 feet in height running along parallel to each
other with a valley in between each, and are only crevassed badly at the
outer end as far as we have seen, though there are smaller crevasses
right along. We camped in one of these valleys about 9.30 P.M.; I was
thoroughly tired, so I think was everybody else. We were about a mile
from the ice edge; and the problem was where to get Nobby up the
precipitous slopes. This was solved by the arrival of Evans, Atkinson,
Forde and Keohane about midnight. They had seen us coming in from the
heights, and had come down for news. Teddy Evans had arrived the day
before, and, being warned off the Barrier edge by a note left by Captain
Scott, had made for the land with his party, and one horse Jimmy Pigg. He
had found a good way up a mile or so farther east, almost under Castle
Rock. He had walked to Hut Point with Atkinson the next day and heard of
the loss of Cherry, myself and the animals from Bill Wilson and Meares
who had been left there to look after their teams. I hadn't seen Atkinson
for quite a while when we met this time.

"The next day we relayed the sledges up the slope which was about 700
feet high rising from a small bay. It was so steep that the pony could
only be led up and we had to put on crampons to grip the ice. These are
merely a sole of leather with light metal plates for foot and heel
containing spikes. [These were altered afterwards.] They have leather
beckets and a lanyard rove off for making them fast over the finnesko. It
took us all the morning to get everything up to the top and then it
started to blow. The camp was wonderfully sheltered. Jimmy Pigg and Nobby
were reunited after many weeks, and to show their friendliness the former
bit the latter in the back of the neck as a first introduction. Atkinson
had gone to Hut Point to reassure Uncle Bill as to our safety and arrived
again with Gran just as we got the last load up. There was no sugar at
the hut except what the dogs had brought in, so Gran, who was quite
fresh, volunteered to get a couple of bags from the depot at Safety Camp,
which could plainly be seen out on the Barrier. We all went