ently they are bound for the same goal.

I returned to camp, and after lunch Meares and I took a sledge
and nine dogs over the Cape to the sea ice on the south side and
started for Hut Point. We took a little provision and a cooker and
our sleeping-bags. Meares had found a way over the Cape which was
on snow all the way except about 100 yards. The dogs pulled well,
and we went towards the Glacier Tongue at a brisk pace; found much of
the ice uncovered. Towards the Glacier Tongue there were some heaps
of snow much wind blown. As we rose the glacier we saw the _Nimrod_
depot some way to the right and made for it. We found a good deal
of compressed fodder and boxes of maize, but no grain crushed as
expected. The open water was practically up to the Glacier Tongue.

We descended by an easy slope 1/4 mile from the end of the Glacier
Tongue, but found ourselves cut off by an open crack some 15 feet
across and had to get on the glacier again and go some 1/2 mile
farther in. We came to a second crack, but avoided it by skirting to
the west. From this point we had an easy run without difficulty to
Hut Point. There was a small pool of open water and a longish crack
off Hut Point. I got my feet very wet crossing the latter. We passed
hundreds of seals at the various cracks.

On the arrival at the hut to my chagrin we found it filled with
snow. Shackleton reported that the door had been forced by the wind,
but that he had made an entrance by the window and found shelter
inside--other members of his party used it for shelter. But they
actually went away and left the window (which they had forced) open;
as a result, nearly the whole of the interior of the hut is filled
with hard icy snow, and it is now impossible to find shelter inside.

Meares and I were able to clamber over the snow to some extent and
to examine the neat pile of cases in the middle, but they will take
much digging out. We got some asbestos sheeting from the magnetic
hut and made the best shelter we could to boil our cocoa.

There was something too depressing in finding the old hut in
such a desolate condition. I had had so much interest in seeing
all the old landmarks and the huts apparently intact. To camp
outside and feel that all the old comfort and cheer had departed,
was dreadfully heartrending. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. It
stems a fundamental expression of civilised human sentiment that men
who come to such places as this should leave what comf