The sea-ice off Hut Point and Observation Hill was already very
dangerous, and had we then had the experience and knowledge of sea-ice
with which we can now look back, it is probable that we should not have
slept so easily upon its surface. Parties travelling to Hut Point and
beyond in summer must keep well out from the Point and Cape Armitage. But
all haste was being made to transport the necessary stores on to the
Barrier surface, where a big home depôt could be made, so far as we could
judge, in safety. The pressure ridges in the sea-ice between Cape
Armitage and Pram Point, which are formed by the movement of the Barrier,
were large, and in some of the hollows countless seals were playing in
the water. Judging by the size of these ridges and by the thickness of
this ice when it broke up, the ice south of Hut Point was at least two
years old.

I well remember the day we took the first of our loads on to the Barrier.
I expect we were all a little excited, for to walk upon the Barrier for
the first time was indeed an adventure: what kind of surface was it, and
how about these beastly crevasses of which we had read so much? Scott was
ahead, and so far as we could see there was nothing but the same level of
ice all round--when suddenly he was above us, walking up the sloping and
quite invisible drift. A minute after and our ponies and sledges were up
and over the tide crack, and beneath us soft and yielding snow, very
different from the hard wind-swept surface of the frozen sea, which we
had just left. Really it was rather prosaic and a tame entrance. But the
Barrier is a tricky place, and it takes years to get to know her.

On our outward journey this day Oates did his best to kill a seal. My own
tent was promised some kidneys if we were good, and our mouths watered
with the prospect of the hoosh before us. The seal had been left for
dead, and when on our homeward way we neared the place of his demise