and finish the igloo, but it was blowing too hard. When we got to
the top we did some digging but it was quite impossible to get the roof
on, and we had to leave it. We realized that day that it blew much harder
at the top of the slope than where our tent was. It was bitterly cold up
there that morning with a wind force 4-5 and a minus thirty temperature.

The oil question was worrying us quite a lot. We were now well in to the
fifth of our six tins, and economizing as much as possible, often having
only two hot meals a day. We had to get down to the Emperor penguins
somehow and get some blubber to run the stove which had been made for us
in the hut. The 19th being a calm fine day we started at 9.30, with an
empty sledge, two ice-axes, Alpine rope, harnesses and skinning tools.

Wilson had made this journey through the Cape Crozier pressure ridges
several times in the Discovery days. But then they had daylight, and they
had found a practicable way close under the cliffs which at the present
moment were between us and the ridges.

As we neared the bottom of the mountain slope, farther to the north than
we had previously gone, we had to be careful about crevasses, but we soon
hit off the edge of the cliff and skirted along it until it petered out
on the same level as the Barrier. Turning left handed we headed towards
the sea-ice, knowing that there were some two miles of pressure between
us and Cape Crozier itself. For about half a mile it was fair going,
rounding big knobs of pressure but always managing to keep more or less
on the flat and near the ice-cliff which soon rose to a very great height
on our left. Bill's idea was to try and keep close under this cliff,
along that same Discovery way which I have mentioned above. They never
arrived there early enough for the eggs in those days; the chicks were
hatched. Whether we should now find any Emperors, and if so whether they
would have any eggs, was by no means certain.

However, we soon began to get into trouble, meeting several crevasses
every few yards, and I have no doubt crossing scores of others of which
we had no knowledge. Though we hugged the cliffs as close as possible we
found ourselves on the top of the first pressure ridge, separated by a
deep gulf from the ice-slope which we wished to reach. Then we were in a
great valley between the first and second ridges: we got into huge heaps
of ice pressed up in every shape on every side, crevassed in every
directi