o Jones to
hoist a large flag on the mast, and to burn flares each night at 10 P.M.
if he should return while I was away.

There was a fresh gale with blinding drift early on the following
morning; so we postponed the start. At 4 P.M. the wind subsided to
a strong breeze and I again went up the mast to sweep the horizon.
Westward from an icy cape to the south a gale was still blowing and a
heavy cloud of drift, fifty to sixty feet high, obscured everything.

An hour later Watson saw three Adelie penguins approaching across the
floe and we went down to meet them, bringing them in for the larder.
Four Antarctic petrels flew above our heads: a sign of returning summer
which was very cheering.

The previous night had promised a fine day and we were not disappointed
on October 26. A sledge was packed with fourteen days' provisions for
eight men and we started away on a search expedition at 10 A.M.

After doing a little over nine miles we camped at 5.30 P.M. Before
retiring to bag, I had a last look round and was delighted to see Jones
and his party about a mile to the south. It was now getting dark and we
were within two hundred yards of them before being seen, and, as they
were to windward, they could not hear our shouts. It was splendid
to find them all looking well. They were anxious to get back to "The
Grottoes," considering there was only one serviceable tent between them.
Kennedy and I offered to change with any of them but, being too eager
for warm blankets and a good bed, they trudged on, arriving at the Base
at midnight.

Briefly told, their story was that they were stopped in their westerly
march, when forty-five miles had been covered, by a badly broken
glacier--Helen Glacier--on the far side of which there was open sea.
There was only one thing to do and that was to set out for the mainland
by a course so circuitous that they were brought a long way eastward,
back towards "The Grottoes." They had very rough travelling, bad
weather, and were beset with many difficulties in mounting on to the
land-ice, where the depot had to be placed. Their distance from the
Base at this point was only twenty-eight miles and the altitude was one
thousand feet above sea-level. On the ice-cap they were delayed by a
blizzard and for seventeen days--an unexampled time--they were unable to
move from camp. One tent collapsed and the occupants, Jones, Dovers and
Hoadley, had to dig a hole in the snow and lower the tent into it.

T