The weather on the morning of October 30 was overcast and misty, with occasional falls of snow.  A moderate north-easterly breeze was blowing.  We were still living on extra food, brought from the ship when we abandoned her, and the sledging and boating rations were intact.  These rations would provide for twenty-eight men for fifty-six days on full rations, but we could count on getting enough seal and penguin meat to at least double this time.  We could even, if progress proved too difficult and too injurious to the boats, which we must guard as our ultimate means of salvation, camp on the nearest heavy floe, scour the neighbouring pack for penguins and seals, and await the outward rift of the pack, to open and navigable water.

“This plan would avoid the grave dangers we are now incurring of getting entangled in impassable pressure-ridges and possibly irretrievably damaging the boats, which are bound to suffer in rough ice; it would also minimize the peril of the ice splitting under us, as it did twice during the night at our first camp.  Yet I feel sure that it is the right thing to attempt a march, since if we can make five or seven miles a day to the north-west our chance of reaching safety in the months to come will be increased greatly.  There is a psychological aspect to the question also.  It will be much better for the men in general to feel that, even though progress is slow, they are on their way to land than it will be simply to sit down and wait for the tardy north-westerly drift to take us out of this cruel waste of ice.  We will make an attempt to move.  The issue is beyond my power either to predict or to control.”

That afternoon Wild and I went out in the mist and snow to find a road to the north-east.  After many devious turnings to avoid the heavier pressure-ridges, we pioneered a way for at least a mile and a half. and then returned by a rather better route to the camp.  The pressure now was rapid in movement and our floe was suffering from the shakes and jerks of the ice.  At 3 p.m., after lunch, we got under way, leaving Dump Camp a mass of debris.  The order was that personal gear must not exceed two pounds per man, and this meant that nothing but bare necessaries was to be taken on the march.  We could not afford to cumber ourselves with unnecessary weight.  Holes had been dug in the snow for the reception of private letters and little personal trifles, the Lares and Penates of the members of the Expedition, and into the privacy of these white graves were consigned much of sentimental value and not a little of intrinsic worth.  I rather grudged the two pounds allowance per man, owing to my keen anxiety to keep weights at a minimum, but some personal belongings could fairly be regarded as indispensable.  The journey might be a long one, and there was a possibility of a winter in improvised quarters on an inhospitable coast at the other end.  A man under such conditions needs something to occupy his thoughts, some tangible memento of his home and people beyond the seas.  So sovereigns were thrown away and photographs were kept.  I tore the fly-leaf out of the Bible that Queen Alexandra had given to the ship, with her own writing in it, and also the wonderful page of Job containing the verse: