ily, they were Bill
and Meares; the dogs howled a chorus for our benefit; it was quite like
coming home. Inside the hut, the cause of the blackness was apparent,
they had a blubber fire going, an open one, with no chimney or uptake for
the smoke. After such a long open-air life it fairly choked me, and for
once I could not eat a square meal. We all slept in a row against the
west wall of the hut with our feet inboard.

"The next morning Captain Scott, Bill, Cherry and I set out to walk to
Castle Rock and meet the other party. It was fairly fizzing from the sea,
but clear. Once up on the Heights, however, we seemed to get less wind. A
couple of hours later we were at the great rock, Castle Rock, which is
one of the best landmarks about here. The party in the Saddle Camp had
relayed two of the sledges up the slope; these we hauled on to the top
while the two ponies were harnessed and brought up. There were three
sledges left to take on altogether, so the ponies took one each and we
the other. Meanwhile Captain Scott walked over the shoulder under Castle
Rock to see down the Strait and came back with the intelligence that he
could hardly believe his eyes, but half the Glacier Tongue had broken off
and disappeared. This great Tongue of ice had stood there on arrival of
the Discovery, ten years before, and had remained ever since; it had a
depot of Shackleton's on it, and Campbell had depoted his fodder on it
for us. On the eventful night of the break-up of the ice at least three
miles of the Tongue which had been considered practically terra firma had
gone, after having been there probably for centuries. We headed for the
hut: Bill had looked out a route for the ponies, to avoid slippery
places. It started to bliz, but was not too thick for us to see our
bearings. At the top of Ski Slope the ponies were taken out of the
sledges and led down a circuitous route over the rocks. The rest of us
put everything we wanted on one sledge and leaving the others up there
went down the slope as before. The two ponies arrived before us and were
stabled in the verandah.

"That night for the first time since the establishment of Safety Camp the
depot party were all together again, minus six ponies. In concluding my
report to Captain Scott on the 'floe' incident, which he asked me to set
down long afterwards, I said, 'In reconsidering the foregoing I have come
to the conclusion that I underestimated the danger signs on the sea-ice
on Febru