Dimitri saw the Cairn with the Cross more than eight miles away this morning, and in a good light it would be seen from much farther off.

November 15.  Early morning. We built a cairn to mark the spot near which Oates walked out to his death, and we placed a cross on it.  Lashed to the cross is a record, as follows: 

Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L. E. G. Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons.  In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard to try and save his comrades, beset by hardship.  This note is left by the Relief Expedition. 1912.

This was signed by Atkinson and myself.

We saw the cairn for a long way in a bad light as we came back to-day.

The original plan with which we started from Cape Evans was, if the Party was found where we could still bear out sufficiently to the eastward to have a good chance of missing the pressure caused by the Beardmore, to go on and do what we could to survey the land south of the Beardmore:  for this was the original plan of Captain Scott for this year’s sledging.  But as things are I do not think there can be much doubt that we are doing right in losing no time in going over to the west of McMurdo Sound to see whether we can go up to Evans Coves, and help Campbell and his party.

We brought on Oates’ bag.  The theodolite was inside.

A thickish blizzard blew all day yesterday, but it was clear and there was only surface drift when we turned out for the night march.  Then again as we came along, the sky became overcast—­all except over the land, which remains clear these nights when everything else is obscured.  We noticed the same thing last year.  Now the wind, which had largely dropped, has started again and it is drifting.  We have had wind and drift on four out of the last five days.

November 16.  Early morning. When we were ready to start with the dogs it was blowing a thick blizzard, but the mules had already started some time, when it was not thick.  We had to wait until nearly 4 A.M. before we could start, and came along following tracks.  It is very warm and the surface is covered with loose snow, but the slide in it seems good.  We found the mules here at the Cairn and Cross, having been able to find their way partly by the old tracks.

I have been trying to draw the grave.  Of all the fine monuments in the world none seems to me more fitting; and it is also most impressive.

November 17.  Early morning. I think we are all going crazy together—­at any rate things are pretty difficult.  The latest scheme is to try and find a way over the plateau to Evans Coves, trying to strike the top of a glacier and go down it.  There can be no good in it:  if ever men did it, they would arrive about the time the ship arrived there too, and their labour would be in vain.  If they got there and the ship did not arrive, there is another party stranded.  They would have to wait till February 15 or 20 to see if the ship was coming, and then there would be no travelling back over the plateau:  even if we could do it those men there could not.