elighted to find the
sky clearing and the wind moderating. And then, far away on the northern
horizon a beautiful line of blue sea dotted with bergs!

We now officially considered ourselves to be twenty-seven miles from
the Hut. As we should not have met blue ice on the proper course till
we were only thirteen miles out, it was thought that we had edged a long
way to the east the day before. When a start was made, we manoeuvred to
the west in looking for a crossing-place at each crevasse.

It was not long before the bergs on the horizon were noticeably
enlarging, and at last we realized that in reality it was only a few
miles to them. Suddenly the grade increased, the ice becoming much
lacerated; and we had some trouble getting the sledge along. Hurley was
snow-blind and had one eye covered. He looked very comical feeling his
way over the crevasses, but he probably did not feel over-humorous.

I was in the lead, and suddenly coming over a ridge above a steep
ice-fall, I caught sight of the Mackellar Islets and the old "Piano"
berg. Just at the same instant the spur of ice on which I was standing
collapsed, and down I went into a crevasse. The others quickly had me
out, and, as soon as I was in the upper air, I gave them the news:
"There are the Islands!" Being twenty feet farther back on the rope they
had not yet seen them.

We were now able to place ourselves about three miles west of Aladdin's
Cave. The last camp must have been thirteen miles from the Hut, and we
had really done twenty-seven miles each day instead of our conservative
twenty.

We tried to work along to the east, but the ice was too much broken,
so the camp was made on a patch of snow. In view of our good fortune, I
produced that evening's ration of hoosh in addition to our usual lunch.
Even this meagre spree went against Hurley's feelings, for, being
snow-blind, he had not been able to see the islands and positively would
not believe that we were nearly home.

After lunch it was necessary to retrace our way upwind to get out of the
rough country. About midnight, Webb recognized Aladdin's Cave. Hurley
and I had a competition as to who should see it first, for I was also
getting a little blind again. We had a dead-heat at one hundred and
fifty yards.

The first thing to arrest our attention was a tin of dog biscuits. These
kept things going till we dug out a food tank from which was rapidly
extracted a week's supply of chocolate. After that we pr