assistance of their companions, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard, who had the
other team, they were lowered by means of an Alpine rope into the
crevasse until they could get at the dogs. They, found the poor animals
swinging round, snapping at one another and howling dismally, but in an
awful tangle. The dogs were rescued a pair at a time and, fortunately for
all concerned, they lay down and rested when hauled up to the surface by
Uncle Bill and "Cherry." When all the animals were up and Scott and
Meares themselves had regained safety, a dog fight took place between the
two teams. Apart from this excitement things had gone very well. Scott
was most enthusiastic about the capabilities of Meares's dogs, and he
then expressed an opinion that he would probably run the dogs light on
the Polar journey and do the final plateau march to the Pole itself with
them. What a pity he didn't! Had he done so he might have been alive
to-day.

We learnt from the dog-drivers that the depot had been established in 79
degrees 30 minutes S. 169 degrees E., practically one hundred and fifty
miles distant from the base, and here a ton or so of sledging stores
awaited us preparatory for the great sledge journey to the Pole.

Bowers, Oates, and Gran had been left to build up the depot and lead back
the other five ponies with their empty sledges. We waited for them at
Safety Camp before transporting some of the stuff we had left here out to
Corner Camp, the position thirty-five miles E.S.E. of Safety Camp, where
the crevasses ended. Some of us went into Hut Point to see if the ship
had been there with any message. Little did we dream whilst we sauntered
in over the ice of the news that awaited us. We found that the "Terra
Nova" had been there the day before Atkinson and Crean had got there; she
had also made a second visit on the 9th or 10th February, bringing the
unwelcome news that Amundsen's expedition had been met with in the Bay of