Sunday, February 4.—­R. 18. 8620 feet.  Temp.:  Lunch -22 deg.; Supper -23 deg..  Pulled on foot in the morning over good hard surface and covered 9.7 miles.  Just before lunch unexpectedly fell into crevasses, Evans and I together—­a second fall for Evans, and I camped.  After lunch saw disturbance ahead, and what I took for disturbance (land) to the right.  We went on ski over hard shiny descending surface.  Did very well, especially towards end of march, covering in all 18.1.  We have come down some hundreds of feet.  Half way in the march the land showed up splendidly, and I decided to make straight for Mt.  Darwin, which we are rounding.  Every sign points to getting away off this plateau.  The temperature is 20 deg. lower than when we were here before; the party is not improving in condition, especially Evans, who is becoming rather dull and incapable. [42] Thank the Lord we have good food at each meal, but we get hungrier in spite of it.  Bowers is splendid, full of energy and bustle all the time.  I hope we are not going to have trouble with ice-falls.

Monday, February 5.—­R. 19.  Lunch, 8320 ft., Temp. -17 deg.; Supper, 8120 ft, Temp.-17.2 deg..  A good forenoon, few crevasses; we covered 10.2 miles.  In the afternoon we soon got into difficulties.  We saw the land very clearly, but the difficulty is to get at it.  An hour after starting we came on huge pressures and great street crevasses partly open.  We had to steer more and more to the west, so that our course was very erratic.  Late in the march we turned more to the north and again encountered open crevasses across our track.  It is very difficult manoeuvring amongst these and I should not like to do it without ski.

We are camped in a very disturbed region, but the wind has fallen very light here, and our camp is comfortable for the first time for many weeks.  We may be anything from 25 to 30 miles from our depot, but I wish to goodness we could see a way through the disturbances ahead.  Our faces are much cut up by all the winds we have had, mine least of all; the others tell me they feel their noses more going with than against the wind.  Evans’ nose is almost as bad as his fingers.  He is a good deal crocked up.

Tuesday, February 6.—­Lunch 7900; Supper 7210.  Temp. -15 deg..  We’ve had a horrid day and not covered good mileage.  On turning out found sky overcast; a beastly position amidst crevasses.  Luckily it cleared just before we started.  We went straight for Mt.  Darwin, but in half an hour found ourselves amongst huge open chasms, unbridged, but not very deep, I think.  We turned to the north between two, but to our chagrin they converged into chaotic disturbance.  We had to retrace our steps for a mile or so, then struck to the west and got on to a confused sea of sastrugi, pulling very hard; we put up the sail, Evans’ nose suffered, Wilson very cold, everything horrid.  Camped for lunch in the sastrugi; the only comfort, things looked clearer to the west and we were obviously going downhill.  In the afternoon we struggled on, got out of sastrugi and turned over on glazed surface, crossing many crevasses—­very easy work on ski.  Towards the end of the march we realised the certainty of maintaining a more or less straight course to the depot, and estimate distance 10 to 15 miles.