Were it not for these cumbrous boats
we should get along at a great rate, but we dare not abandon them on
any account. As it is we left one boat, the 'Stancomb Wills', behind
at Ocean Camp, and the remaining two will barely accommodate the whole
party when we leave the floe.
We did a good march of one and a half miles that night before we
halted for "lunch" at 1 a.m., and then on for another mile, when at 5
a.m. we camped by a little sloping berg.
Blackie, one of Wild's dogs, fell lame and could neither pull nor keep
up with the party even when relieved of his harness, so had to be shot.
Nine p.m. that night, the 27th, saw us on the march again. The first
200 yds. took us about five hours to cross, owing to the amount of
breaking down of pressure-ridges and filling in of leads that was
required. The surface, too, was now very soft, so our progress was
slow and tiring. We managed to get another three-quarters of a mile
before lunch, and a further mile due west over a very hummocky floe
before we camped at 5.30 a.m. Greenstreet and Macklin killed and
brought in a huge Weddell seal weighing about 800 lbs., and two emperor
penguins made a welcome addition to our larder.
I climbed a small tilted berg nearby. The country immediately ahead
was much broken up. Great open leads intersected the floes at all
angles, and it all looked very unpromising.
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