or the
Hut, so we set off.

The sledge having been dug out, one man went in front to keep the course
and two men brought up the rear, holding back the load. With long-spiked
Swiss crampons we could hold up very well on the ice. In dense drift it
was not a simple matter to steer a correct course for the Hut and it was
essential not to deviate, as the rocky foreshores near which it stood
extended only for a mile east and west; on either side abutting on
vertical ice-cliffs. With a compelling force like a prance at our backs,
it was not a nice thing to contemplate finding ourselves on the brink of
a precipice.

The wind, however, was steady, and we knew at what angle to steer
to keep a rough course; and we were also helped by a number of
small crevasses between three and five and a half miles which ran
approximately north and south.

Half a mile had been covered before we remarked the absence of the dogs
which had been left to follow. We had taken for granted that they would
follow us, and were so fully occupied after starting that their absence
had passed unnoticed. It would be difficult to locate them if we
returned; the weather would improve in a few days; if they felt hungry
they would come down of their own accord. So we decided to go on without
them.

At two miles from the Hut the drift thinned out and the wind became more
gusty. Between the gusts the view ahead opened out for a considerable
distance, and the rocks soon showed black below the last steep fall.

Back at the Hut it was arranged that if the dogs did not return in a
reasonable time, Bage, Mertz and Hurley should go up to Aladdin's Cave
in search of them.

They made a great effort to get away next morning. The sledge was hauled
for one thousand one hundred yards up to the magnetic ice-cave against a
bitter torrent of air rushing by at eighty-two miles an hour. Here they
retreated exhausted.

On the 17th the wind was gauged at eighty-four miles an hour, and
nothing could be done. Dense drift and ferocious wind continued until
the morning of August 21, and still none of the dogs had come home.

Bage, Hurley and Mertz took advantage of a slight lull to start off at
6.30 A.M. As they did not return that night we presumed they were making
good headway.

The drift was thick and the wind high for four days, and it was not
until the morning of the 25th that the weather showed clearer and more
promising. At 2 P.M. Bage and his companions arrived at the