The 4th was a repetition of the previous day—a terribly hard two and a half miles. We all had "hangman's drops" into crevasses. One snow-bridge, ten feet wide, fell in as the meter following the twelve-foot sledge was going over behind it.
The 5th was a day of wind, scurrying snow and bad light. Harrisson went out to feed the dogs in the morning and broke through the lid of a crevasse, but fortunately caught the side and climbed out.
The diary again:
"Friday, December 6. Still bad light and a little snowfall, but we were off at ten o'clock. I was leading and fell into at least a dozen crevasses, but had to be hauled out of one only. At 1.30 P.M. we arrived at the open lead we had crossed on the outward journey and found the same place. There had been much movement since then and we had to make a bridge, cutting away projections in some places and filling up the sea-water channels with snow and ice. Then Harrisson crossed with the aid of two bamboo poles, and hauled me over on a sledge. Harrisson and I on one side and Kennedy and Watson on the other then hauled the sledges backwards and forwards, lightly loaded one way and empty the other, until all was across. The shelf-ice is without doubt afloat, if the presence of sea-water and diatomaceous stains on the ice is of any account. We camped to-night in the same place as on the evening of November 25, so with luck we should be out of this mess to-morrow. Switzerland had to be killed as I cannot afford any more biscuit. Amundsen ate his flesh without hesitation, but Zip refused it."
Sure enough, two days sufficed to bring us under the bluff on David Island. As the tents were being pitched, a skua gull flew down. I snared him with a line, using dog's flesh for bait and we had stewed skua for dinner. It was excellent.
While I was cooking the others climbed up the rocks and brought back eight snow petrels and five eggs, with the news that many more birds were nesting. After supper we all went out and secured sixty eggs and fifty-eight birds. It seemed a fearful crime to kill these beautiful, pure white creatures, but it meant fourteen days' life for the dogs end longer marches for us.
Fresh breeze, light snow and a bad light on the 9th; we remained in camp. Two more skuas were snared for the evening's dinner. The snow petrels' eggs were almost as large as hens' eggs and very good to eat when fresh. Many of them had been under the birds rather too long, but although they did not look so nice, there was little difference in the taste. I was very glad to get this fresh food, as we had lived on tinned meat most of the year and there was always the danger of scurvy.
The light was too changeable to make a satisfactory start until the evening of December 11, when we managed to dodge through four and a half miles of broken ice, reaching the mainland close to our position on November 16, and camping for lunch at midnight. In front was a clear mile on a peninsula and then the way led across Robinson Bay, seven miles wide, fed by the Northcliffe Glacier.
Another night march was commenced at 8 P.M. The day had been cloudless and the sun very warm, softening the surface, but at the time of starting it was hardening rapidly. Crossing the peninsula we resolved to head across Robinson Bay as the glacier's surface was still torn up. We ended with a fine march of twelve miles one thousand two hundred yards.
The fine weather continued and we managed to cross three and a half miles of heavy sastrugi, pressure-ridges and crevasses, attaining the first slopes of the mainland at 10 P.M. on December 14. The discovery of two nunataks springing out of the piedmont glacier to the south, lured us on.