As there is nothing to cause this wooden cross to rot, it will remain standing for an indefinite time.

We left a year’s stores for a dozen people at Cape Evans and re-embarked the remainder of our possessions.

The collections and specimens were carefully stowed in our holds, and then we took the ship to Cape Royds and Granite Harbour, where geological depots had been made by Priestley, Taylor, and Debenham.

Finally we revisited Evans Coves, and secured the ship to a natural wharf of very hard sea ice, which stretches out some distance from the Piedmont.

Priestley here secured his party’s geological dump, and while he was away the remainder of the expedition in little relays visited the igloo where Campbell and his party spent the previous winter.  Concerning the igloo, the following are my impressions, taken from my diary: 

“Never in my life have I experienced such sensations as I did on this occasion.  The visit to the igloo explained in itself a story of hardship that brought home to us what Campbell never would have told.  There was only one corner of it where a short man could stand upright.  In odd corners were discarded clothes, saturated in blubber and absolutely black with smoke; the weight of these garments was extraordinary, and how Campbell’s party ever lived through what they did I don’t know: 

“Although the igloo was once white inside, blubber stoves had blackened it throughout.  No cell prisoners ever had such discomforts.  (Campbell’s simple narrative I read aloud to Bruce from Campbell’s diary.  It was a tale of altruism and grit, so simply told, full of disappointments and privations, all of which they accepted with fortitude and never a complaint.  I had to stop reading it as it brought tears to my eyes and made my voice thick—­ditto old Bruce.) After spending half an hour at the igloo, and after Pennell had done some magnetic work, picked up our ice anchors and steamed away.”

On 27th January, 1913, after breakfast, I called the staff together in the wardroom and read out my plans for the future, officially assumed the command and control of the Expedition.

I then appointed Lieuts.  Campbell, Pennell, Bruce, Surgeon E.L.  Atkinson, and Mr. Francis Drake as an executive committee, with myself as president, to assist me in satisfactorily terminating the Expedition.  I asked every member of the staff publicly if he had any questions to put, and also if he could suggest any better combination for the committee.  As all were unanimous in the fairness of the selection, it stands.  The minutes of the proceedings were taken down and my remarks placed verbatim among the records of the Expedition.

We left a depot of provisions at the head of the Bay, its position being marked by a bamboo and flag.

This depot contains enough foodstuffs to enable a party of five or six men to make their way to Butter Point, where, another large depot exists.