which was we knew a risky thing to do. It took us up to lunch time to reach the valley, where we camped for lunch, where we all felt greatly relieved, having accomplished the thing safely, no damage to ourselves or the sledge, but we lost one of Crean's ski sticks. Some of the crevasses we crossed were 100 to 200 feet wide, but well bridged in the centre, but the edges were very dangerous indeed. This is where the snow and ice begins to roll down the glacier. After starting on our way again we found we had to climb the hill. Things dont look very nice ahead again to-night. We dont seem to be more than a day's run from the depôt, but it will surprise me if we reach it by to-morrow night; if not we shall have to go on short rations, as our supply is nearly run out, and we have not lost any time, but we knew on starting we had to average 15½ miles per day to reach it in time.
This has been a very bad day for us, what with ice-falls and crevasses. We feel all full up to-night. The strain is tremendous some days. We are camped, but not at the depôt, but we hope to pick it up some time to-morrow. We shall be glad to get off the Summit, as the temperature is very low. We expected the party would have reached the Pole yesterday, providing they had anything of luck.
[Scott reached the Pole on January 17.]
Sunday, we reached the Mt. Darwin Depôt at 2 p.m. and camped for lunch. We had just enough now for our meal; this is cutting it a bit fine. We have now taken our 3½ days' allowance, which has got to take us another 57 miles to the Cloudmaker Depôt. This we shall do if we all keep as fit as we seem just now. We left a note at the depôt to inform the Captain of our safe arrival, wishing them the best of a journey home. We are quite cheerful here to-night, after having put things right at the depôt, where we found the sugar exposed to the sun; it had commenced to melt, but we put everything alright before we left, and picked up
