decided me to turn back.  We could see nothing owing to the black mist, everything looked solid as ever, but I knew enough to mistrust moving ice, however solid it seemed.  It was a beastly march back:  dark, gloomy and depressing.  The beasts got more and more down in their spirits and stopped so frequently that I thought we would never reach the seal crack.  I said to Cherry, however, that I would take no risks, and camp well over the other side on the old sound ice if we could get there.  This we managed to do eventually.  Here there was soft snow, whereas on the sea side of the crack it was hard:  that is the reason we lost the dogs’ tracks at once on crossing.  Even over this crack I thought it best to march as far in as possible.  We got well into the bay, as far as our exhausted ponies would drag, before I camped and threw up the walls, fed the beasts, and retired to feed ourselves.  We had only the primus with the missing cap and it took over 11/2 hours to heat up the water; however, we had a cup of pemmican.  It was very dark, and I mistook a small bag of curry powder for the cocoa bag, and made cocoa with that, mixed with sugar; Crean drank his right down before discovering anything was wrong.  It was 2 P.M. before we were ready to turn in.  I went out and saw everything quiet:  the mist still hung to the west, but you could see a good mile and all was still.  The sky was very dark over the Strait though, the unmistakable sign of open water.  I turned in.  Two and a half hours later I awoke, hearing a noise.  Both my companions were snoring, I thought it was that and was on the point of turning in again having seen that it was only 4.30, when I heard the noise again.  I thought—­’my pony is at the oats!’ and went out.

“I cannot describe either the scene or my feelings.  I must leave those to your imagination.  We were in the middle of a floating pack of broken-up ice.  The tops of the hills were visible, but all below was thin mist and as far as the eye could see there was nothing solid; it was all broken up, and heaving up and down with the swell.  Long black tongues of water were everywhere.  The floe on which we were had split right under our picketing line, and cut poor Guts’ wall in half.  Guts himself had gone, and a dark streak of water alone showed the place where the ice had opened under him.  The two sledges securing the other end of the line were on the next floe and had been pulled right to the edge.  Our camp was on a floe not more than 30 yards across.  I shouted to Cherry and Crean, and rushed out in my socks to save the two sledges; the two floes were touching farther on and I dragged them to this place and got them on to our floe.  At that moment our own floe split in two, but we were all together on one piece.  I then got my finnesko on, remarking that we had been in a few tight places, but this was about the limit.  I have been told since that I was quixotic not to leave everything and make for safety.  You will understand, however, that I never for one moment considered the abandonment of anything.