not
till the next afternoon in moderate drift that a pair of skis which had
been left at the foot of 'The Steps' were located and the hut reached
once again.

After lunch on August 11, while we were excavating some buried kerosene,
Jones sighted a group of seven Emperor penguins two miles away over the
western floe. Taking a sledge and camera we made after them. A mile off,
they saw us and advanced with their usual stately bows. It seemed an
awful shame to kill them, but we were sorely in need of fresh meat. The
four we secured averaged seventy pounds in weight and were a heavy load
up the steep rise to the glacier; but our reward came at dinner-time.

With several fine days to give us confidence, everything was made ready
for the sledge journey on August 20. The party was to consist of six men
and three dogs, the object of the journey being to lay out a food-depot
to the east in view of the long summer journey we were to make in that
direction. Hoadley and Kennedy were to remain at the Base, the former
to finish the geological shaft and the latter for magnetic work. There
remained also a good deal to do preparing stores for later sledge
journeys.

The load was to be one thousand four hundred and forty pounds
distributed over three sledges; two hundred pounds heavier than on the
March Journey, but as the dogs pulled one sledge, the actual weight per
man was less.

The rations were almost precisely the same as those used by Shackleton
during his Expedition, and the daily allowance was exactly the
same--thirty-four ounces per man per day. For his one ounce of oatmeal,
the same weighs of ground biscuit was substituted; the food value being
the same. On the second depot journey and the main summer journeys, a
three-ounce glaxo biscuit was used in place of four and a half ounces of
plasmon biscuit. Instead of taking cheese and chocolate as the luncheon
ration, I took chocolate alone, as on Shackleton's southern journey it
was found more satisfactory than the cheese, though the food value was
practically the same.

The sledging equipment and clothing were identical with that used by
Shackleton. Jaeger fleece combination suits were included in the outfit
but, though excellent garments for work at the Base, they were much too
heavy for sledging. We therefore wore Jaeger underclothing and burberry
wind clothing as overalls.

The weather was not propitious for a start until Thursday, August 22.
We turned out at 5.30 A.M.