We might reach Hut Point to-night:  we were burning more oil now, that one-gallon tin had lasted us well:  and burning more candle too; at one time we feared they would give out.  A hell of a morning we had:  -57 deg. in our present state.  But it was calm, and the Barrier edge could not be much farther now.  The surface was getting harder:  there were a few wind-blown furrows, the crust was coming up to us.  The sledge was dragging easier:  we always suspected the Barrier sloped downwards hereabouts.  Now the hard snow was on the surface, peeping out like great inverted basins on which we slipped, and our feet became warmer for not sinking into soft snow.  Suddenly we saw a gleam of light in a line of darkness running across our course.  It was the Barrier edge:  we were all right now.

We ran the sledge off a snow-drift on to the sea-ice, with the same cold stream of air flowing down it which wrecked my hands five weeks ago:  pushed out of this, camped and had a meal:  the temperature had already risen to -43 deg..  We could almost feel it getting warmer as we went round Cape Armitage on the last three miles.  We managed to haul our sledge up the ice foot, and dug the drift away from the door.  The old hut struck us as fairly warm.

Bill was convinced that we ought not to go into the warm hut at Cape Evans when we arrived there—­to-morrow night!  We ought to get back to warmth gradually, live in a tent outside, or in the annexe for a day or two.  But I’m sure we never meant to do it.  Just now Hut Point did not prejudice us in favour of such abstinence.  It was just as we had left it:  there was nothing sent down for us there—­no sleeping-bags, nor sugar:  but there was plenty of oil.  Inside the hut we pitched a dry tent left there since Depot Journey days, set two primuses going in it; sat dozing on our bags; and drank cocoa without sugar so thick that next morning we were gorged with it.  We were very happy, falling asleep between each mouthful, and after several hours discussed schemes of not getting into our bags at all.  But some one would have to keep the primus going to prevent frost-bite, and we could not trust ourselves to keep awake.  Bill and I tried to sing a part-song.  Finally we sopped our way into our bags.  We only stuck them three hours, and thankfully turned out at 3 A.M., and were ready to pack up when we heard the wind come away.  It was no good, so we sat in our tent and dozed again.  The wind dropped at 9.30:  we were off at 11.  We walked out into what seemed to us a blaze of light.  It was not until the following year that I understood that a great part of such twilight as there is in the latter part of the winter was cut off from us by the mountains under which we travelled.  Now, with nothing between us and the northern horizon below which lay the sun, we saw as we had not seen for months, and the iridescent clouds that day were beautiful.

We just pulled for all we were worth and did nearly two miles an hour:  for two miles a baddish salt surface, then big undulating hard sastrugi and good going.  We slept as we walked.  We had done eight miles by 4 P.M. and were past Glacier Tongue.  We lunched there.