Monday, February 12.—­R. 26.  In a very critical situation.  All went well in the forenoon, and we did a good long march over a fair surface.  Two hours before lunch we were cheered by the sight of our night camp of the 18th December, the day after we made our depot—­this showed we were on the right track.  In the afternoon, refreshed by tea, we went forward, confident of covering the remaining distance, but by a fatal chance we kept too far to the left, and then we struck uphill and, tired and despondent, arrived in a horrid maze of crevasses and fissures.  Divided councils caused our course to be erratic after this, and finally, at 9 P.M. we landed in the worst place of all.  After discussion we decided to camp, and here we are, after a very short supper and one meal only remaining in the food bag; the depot doubtful in locality.  We must get there to-morrow.  Meanwhile we are cheerful with an effort.  It’s a tight place, but luckily we’ve been well fed up to the present.  Pray God we have fine weather to-morrow.

[At this point the bearings of the mid-glacier depot are given, but need not be quoted.]

Tuesday, February 13.—­Camp R. 27, beside Cloudmaker.  Temp. -10 deg..  Last night we all slept well in spite of our grave anxieties.  For my part these were increased by my visits outside the tent, when I saw the sky gradually closing over and snow beginning to fall.  By our ordinary time for getting up it was dense all around us.  We could see nothing, and we could only remain in our sleeping-bags.  At 8.30 I dimly made out the land of the Cloudmaker.  At 9 we got up, deciding to have tea, and with one biscuit, no pemmican, so as to leave our scanty remaining meal for eventualities.  We started marching, and at first had to wind our way through an awful turmoil of broken ice, but in about an hour we hit an old moraine track, brown with dirt.  Here the surface was much smoother and improved rapidly.  The fog still hung over all and we went on for an hour, checking our bearings.  Then the whole place got smoother and we turned outward a little.  Evans raised our hopes with a shout of depot ahead, but it proved to be a shadow on the ice.  Then suddenly Wilson saw the actual depot flag.  It was an immense relief, and we were soon in possession of our 3 1/2 days’ food.  The relief to all is inexpressible; needless to say, we camped and had a meal.

Marching in the afternoon, I kept more to the left, and closed the mountain till we fell on the stone moraines.  Here Wilson detached himself and made a collection, whilst we pulled the sledge on.  We camped late, abreast the lower end of the mountain, and had nearly our usual satisfying supper.  Yesterday was the worst experience of the trip and gave a horrid feeling of insecurity.  Now we are right up, we must march.  In future food must be worked so that we do not run so short if the weather fails us.  We mustn’t get into a hole like this again.  Greatly relieved to find that both the other parties got through safely.  Evans seems to have got mixed up with pressures like ourselves.  It promises to be a very fine day to-morrow.  The valley is gradually clearing.  Bowers has had a very bad attack of snow blindness, and Wilson another almost as bad.  Evans has no power to assist with camping work.