n for geology and photography,
while I climbed to the summit with the field-glasses to look for
the missing sledge. Kennedy remained at the camp to take a series of
magnetic observations.

There were hundreds of snow petrels pairing off, but no eggs were seen
in any of the nest-crevices. They were so tame that it was quite easy
to catch them, but they had a habit of ejecting their partially digested
food, a yellow oily mess, straight at one. This was the stuff we had
thought was egg-yolk on Amundsen's head the previous night.

Upon returning to camp, the search for the sledge was continued. After
prospecting with a spade in possible snow-drifts and crevasse-lids, we
walked out fanwise, in the direction of the prevailing wind, but with no
result. I decided, therefore, to take Harrisson with me. I was extremely
sorry for Moyes, but it could not be helped.

On the way back towards the land to the south, we found that the surface
had improved in the morning's gale. Camp was finally pitched on a slope
close to the high land.

The coast, from the Base to this spot--Delay Point--runs almost due east
and west and with no deep indentations except the Bay of Winds. To the
west, the slope from the inland plateau is fairly gradual and therefore
not badly broken, but still farther west it is much steeper, coming
down from two thousand feet in a very short distance, over tumbling
ice-fields and frozen cascades. Several outcrops of dark rock lay to the
east, one of them only two miles away.

The wind-velocity fluctuated between sixty and eighty miles per hour,
keeping us securely penned. Harrisson and Kennedy, after battling their
way to our tent for a meal, used the second primus and cooker, brought
for Harrisson, in their own tent. All we could do was to smoke and
listen to the fierce squalls and lashing drift. I had brought nothing to
read on the trip, making up the weight in tobacco. Watson had Palgrave's
'Golden Lyrics', Kennedy, an engineer's hand-book, and Harrisson, a
portion of the 'Reign of Mary Tudor'. There was a tiny pack of patience
cards, but they were in the instrument-box on the sledge and none of us
cared to face the gale to get them.

The wind, on the 10th, saw fit to moderate to half a gale; the drift
creeping low and thick over the ground; the land visible above it.
Donning burberrys, we made an excursion to the rocks ahead. Two miles
and a climb of six hundred feet were rather exhausting in the strong
wind