October 28.  Hut Point. A beautiful day.  We finished digging out the stable for the mules this morning and brought in some blubber this afternoon.  The Bluff has its cap on, but otherwise the sky is nearly clear:  there is a little cumulus between White Island and the Bluff, the first I have seen this year on the Barrier.  It is most noticeable how much snow has disappeared off the rocks and shingle here.

October 29.  Hut Point. The mule party, under Wright, consisting of Gran, Nelson, Crean, Hooper, Williamson, Keohane and Lashly, left Cape Evans at 10.30 and arrived here at 5 P.M. after a good march in perfect weather.  They leave Debenham and Archer at the hut, and I am afraid it will be dull work for them the next three months.  Archer turned out early and made some cakes which they have brought with them.  They camped for lunch seven miles from Cape Evans.

[Illustration:  THE MULE PARTY LEAVES CAPE EVANS—­October 29, 1912]

This is the start of the Search Journey.  Everything which forethought can do has been done, and to a point twelve miles south of Corner Camp the mules will be travelling light owing to the depots which have been laid.  The barometer has been falling the last few days and is now low, while the Bluff is overcast.  Yet it does not look like blizzard to come.  Two Adelie penguins, the first, came to Cape Evans yesterday, and a skua was seen there on the 24th:  so summer is really here.

October 30.  Hut Point. It is now 8 P.M., and the mules are just off, looking very fit, keeping well together, and giving no trouble at the start.  Their leaders turned in this afternoon, and to-night begins the new routine of night marching, just the same as last year.  It did look thick on the Barrier this afternoon, and it was quite a question whether it was advisable for them to start.  But it is rolling away now, being apparently only fog, which is now disappearing before some wind, or perhaps because the sun is losing its power.  I think they will have a good march.

November 2, 5 A.M. Biscuit Depot. Atkinson, Dimitri and I, with two dog-teams, left Hut Point last night at 8.30.  We have had a coldish night’s run, -21 deg. when we left after lunch, -17 deg. now.  The surface was very heavy for the dogs, there being a soft coating of snow over everything since we last came this way, due no doubt to the foggy days we have been having lately.  The sledge-meter makes it nearly 16 miles.

The mule party has two days’ start on us, and their programme is to do twelve miles a day to One Ton Depot.  Their tracks are fairly clear, but there has been some drift from the east since they passed.  We picked up our cairns well.  We are pretty wet, having been running nearly all the way.

November 3. Early morning. 141/2 miles.  We are here at Corner Camp, but not without a struggle.  We left the Biscuit Depot at 6.30 P.M. yesterday, and it is now 4 A.M.  The last six miles took us four hours, which is very bad going for dogs, and we have all been running most of the way.  The surface was very bad, crusty and also soft:  it was blowing with some low drift, and overcast and snowing.  We followed the drifted-up mule tracks with difficulty and are lucky to have got so far.  The temperature has been a constant zero.