In erecting the hut, it was found that a case of nuts and bolts was missing, and many places in the frame had in consequence to be secured with nails. For a while I was rather doubtful how the building would stand a really heavy blow. There was, however, no need for uneasiness, as the first two blizzards drifted snow to such a depth in our immediate vicinity that, even with the wind at hurricane force, there was scarcely a tremor in the building.
The morning of Wednesday March 13 was calm and overcast. Breakfast was served at six o'clock. We then set to work and cleared away the snow from the masts and stay-posts, so that by 8.30 A.M. both masts were in position. Before the job was over, a singular sight was witnessed. A large section of the glacier—many thousands of tons—calved off into the sea. The tremendous waves raised by the fall of this mass smashed into fragments all the floe left in the bay. With the sea-ice went the snow-slopes which were the natural roadway down. A perpendicular cliff, sixty to one hundred feet above the water, was all that remained, and our opportunities of obtaining seals and penguins in the future were cut off. Of course, too, the old landing-place no longer existed.
The whole of the sledging provisions and gear were brought out, weighed and packed on the sledges; the total weight being one thousand two hundred and thirty-three pounds. Dovers, Harrisson, Hoadley, Jones, Moyes and myself were to constitute the party.
It was necessary for two men to remain behind at the base to keep the meteorological records, to wind chronometers, to feed the dogs and to bring up the remainder of the stores from the edge of the ice-cliff. Kennedy, the magnetician, had to stay, as two term days** were due in the next month. It was essential that we should have a medical man with us, so Jones was included in the sledging party; the others drawing lots to decide who should remain with Kennedy. The unlucky one was Watson.
** Days set apart by previous arrangement for magnetic "quick runs."
To the south of the Base, seventeen miles distant at the nearest point, the mainland was visible, entirely ice-clad, running almost due east and west. It appeared to rise rapidly to about three thousand feet, and then to ascend more gradually as the great plateau of the Antarctic continent. It was my intention to travel inland beyond the lower ice-falls, which extended in an irregular line of riven bluffs all along the coast, and then to lay a depot or depots which might be useful on the next season's journeys. Another reason for making the journey was to give the party some experience in sledging work. The combined weight of both sledges and effects was one thousand two hundred and thirty-three pounds, and the total amount of food carried was four hundred and sixty pounds.
While the sledges were being loaded, ten skua gulls paid us a visit, and, as roast skua is a very pleasant change of food, Jones shot six of them.
At 1 P.M. we left the hut, making an east-south-east course to clear a pressure-ridge; altering the course once more to south-east. The coast in this direction looked accessible, whereas a line running due south would have brought us to some unpromising ice-falls by a shorter route.
The surface was very good and almost free from crevasses; only one, into which Jones fell to his middle, being seen during the afternoon's march. Not wishing to do too much the first day, especially after the "soft" days we had been forced to spend in the hut during the spell of bad weather, I made two short halts in the afternoon and camped at 5 P.M., having done seven and half miles.
On the 11th we rose at 5 A.M., and at 7 A.M. we were on the march. For the two hours after starting, the surface was tolerable and then changed for the worse; the remainder of the day's work being principally over a hard crust, which was just too brittle to bear the weight of a man, letting him through to a soft substratum, six or eight inches deep in the snow. Only those who have travelled in country like this can properly realize how wearisome it is.