got away at 9 A.M. A boat from the _Terra Nova_ fetched the Western
Party and myself as the ponies were led out of the camp. Meares and
Wilson went ahead of the ponies to test the track. On board the ship I
was taken in to see Lillie's catch of sea animals. It was wonderful,
quantities of sponges, isopods, pentapods, large shrimps, corals,
&c., &c.--but the _pièce de résistance_ was the capture of several
buckets full of cephalodiscus of which only seven pieces had been
previously caught. Lillie is immensely pleased, feeling that it alone
repays the whole enterprise.

In the forenoon we skirted the Island, getting 30 and 40 fathoms of
water north and west of Inaccessible Island. With a telescope we could
see the string of ponies steadily progressing over the sea ice past the
Razor Back Islands. As soon as we saw them well advanced we steamed on
to the Glacier Tongue. The open water extended just round the corner
and the ship made fast in the narrow angle made by the sea ice with
the glacier, her port side flush with the surface of the latter. I
walked over to meet the ponies whilst Campbell went to investigate a
broad crack in the sea ice on the Southern Road. The ponies were got
on to the Tongue without much difficulty, then across the glacier, and
picketed on the sea ice close to the ship. Meanwhile Campbell informed
me that the big crack was 30 feet across: it was evident we must get
past it on the glacier, and I asked Campbell to peg out a road clear
of cracks. Oates reported the ponies ready to start again after tea,
and they were led along Campbell's road, their loads having already
been taken on the floe--all went well until the animals got down on
the floe level and Oates led across an old snowed-up crack. His and
the next pony got across, but the third made a jump at the edge and
sank to its stomach in the middle. It couldn't move, and with such
struggles as it made it sank deeper till only its head and forelegs