ous survivors of the eight ponies with which we started on
our journey were housed in the verandah, which was made wind-proof and
snow-proof. The more truculent dogs lay tethered outside, the more docile
were allowed their freedom, but even so the dog fights were not
infrequent. We had one poor little dog, Makaka by name. When unloading
the ship this dog had been overrun by the sledge which he was helping to
pull; he suffered again when the team of dogs fell down the crevasse, and
was now partially paralysed. He was a wretched object, for the hair
refused to grow on his hind quarters, but he was a real sportsman and had
no idea of giving in. Meares and I went out one night when it was blowing
hard, attracted by the cries of a dog. It was Makaka who had ventured to
climb a steep slope and was now afraid to return. When the dogs finally
returned to Cape Evans, Makaka was allowed to run by the side of the
team; but when Cape Evans was reached he was gone. Search failed to find
him and, after some weeks, hope of him was abandoned. But a month
afterwards Gran and Debenham went over to Hut Point, and here at the
entrance of the hut they found Makaka, pitifully weak but able to bark to
them. He must have lived on seal, but how he did so in that condition is
a mystery.

The reader may ask how it was that being so near our Winter Quarters at
Cape Evans we were unable to reach them immediately. Cape Evans is
fifteen miles across the sea from Hut Point, and though both huts are on
the same island--Hut Point being at the end of a peninsula and Cape Evans
on the remains of a flow of lava which juts out into the sea--the land
which joins the two has never yet been crossed by a sledge party owing to
the great ice falls which cover the slopes of Erebus. A glance at the map
will show that although Hut Point is surrounded with sea, or sea-ice, on
every side except that of Arrival Heights, the Barrier abuts upon the Hut
Point Peninsula to the south beyond Pram Point. Thus there is always
communication with the Barrier by a devious route by which indeed we had
just arrived, but farther progress north is cut off until the cold
temperature of the autumn and winter causes the open sea to freeze. We
arrived at Hut Point on March 5 and Scott expected to be able to cross on
the newly-frozen ice by about March 21. However, it was nearly a month
after that when the first party could pass to Cape Evans, and then only
the Bays were frozen and the Sou