our bold escapade had saved us three days' solid foot slogging and that
amount of food. So we pitched our little tent, had a good filling meal,
and then, delighted with our progress, we marched on until 8 p.m. That
night in our sleeping-bags we felt like three bruised pears, but being in
pretty hard condition in those days, our bruises and slight cuts in no
way kept us from hours of perfect, contented slumber.

I see in my diary for January 13, 1912, I have noted that we came down
2000 feet, but I doubt if it really was as much--we then had no means of
measuring.

January 14 found us up at 5.45 (really only 4.45, because in order not to
make my seamen companions anxious I handicapped my watch after first
day's homeward march, putting the hands on one hour each morning before
rising, and back when I got the chance, so that we marched from 10 to 12
hours a day). We hauled our sledge for six hours until we reached the
Upper Glacier Depot under Mount Darwin. Here we took 3 1/2 days' stores
as arranged, and after sorting up and repacking the depot had lunch and
away down the Glacier, camping at 7.30 p.m. off Buckley Island, fairly
close to the land. Temperature rose above zero that night.

Next day we were away at 8 a.m. with our crampons on, we came down
several steep ice slopes, blue ice like glass, Lashly hauling ahead and
Crean and I holding on to the sledge. We bumped a lot, and occasionally
the sledge capsized. But we made good nearly 22 miles. We covered between
18 and 20 miles on January 16, and were in high glee at our progress. We
camped, however, in amongst pressure ridges and huge crevasses, 14 miles
from the Cloudmaker or mid-glacier depot. We hoped next day to reach this
depot. January 16 was a pleasant day, its ending peaceful, with a
sufficiency of excellent sledging rations and the promise of a similar