to cross.  Here it was swept of snow and there was nothing but glassy ice and the incline ended in a low ice-cliff with the water below it.  Attached as we were to the sledge we should have been at a disadvantage had it come to swimming, which a slip might easily have brought about.  We scratched carefully across this and then headed down on the snow, arriving at the hut all well.  The old hut had changed tremendously since I last saw it, having been dug out and cleared of snow and ice.  Two unrecognizable sweeps greeted us heartily, they were Bill and Meares; the dogs howled a chorus for our benefit; it was quite like coming home.  Inside the hut, the cause of the blackness was apparent, they had a blubber fire going, an open one, with no chimney or uptake for the smoke.  After such a long open-air life it fairly choked me, and for once I could not eat a square meal.  We all slept in a row against the west wall of the hut with our feet inboard.

“The next morning Captain Scott, Bill, Cherry and I set out to walk to Castle Rock and meet the other party.  It was fairly fizzing from the sea, but clear.  Once up on the Heights, however, we seemed to get less wind.  A couple of hours later we were at the great rock, Castle Rock, which is one of the best landmarks about here.  The party in the Saddle Camp had relayed two of the sledges up the slope; these we hauled on to the top while the two ponies were harnessed and brought up.  There were three sledges left to take on altogether, so the ponies took one each and we the other.  Meanwhile Captain Scott walked over the shoulder under Castle Rock to see down the Strait and came back with the intelligence that he could hardly believe his eyes, but half the Glacier Tongue had broken off and disappeared.  This great Tongue of ice had stood there on arrival of the Discovery, ten years before, and had remained ever since; it had a depot of Shackleton’s on it, and Campbell had depoted his fodder on it for us.  On the eventful night of the break-up of the ice at least three miles of the Tongue which had been considered practically terra firma had gone, after having been there probably for centuries.  We headed for the hut:  Bill had looked out a route for the ponies, to avoid slippery places.  It started to bliz, but was not too thick for us to see our bearings.  At the top of Ski Slope the ponies were taken out of the sledges and led down a circuitous route over the rocks.  The rest of us put everything we wanted on one sledge and leaving the others up there went down the slope as before.  The two ponies arrived before us and were stabled in the verandah.