Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/116

farther out all the way on this our return journey than on our outward journey, so it differed rather from the surface we had then.

After leaving Hut Point we had very rough, rubbly sea ice with no snow worth mentioning for two or three miles. What indications there were of wind came from the land and showed north-easterly winds off shore. Their direction, however, very gradually altered till we were crossing them exactly at right angles, indicating due easterly winds from the ridge. Later still and farther on towards the Glacier Tongue and Cape Evans the indications gradually turned to show south-easterly winds. These are the winds which seem chiefly to affect the surface of the strait ice during the winter, and as we got on towards the Glacier Tongue the snow-covering became increasingly greater, as well as the evidence of stronger easterly winds. Extensive flatly rounded, hard-surfaced drifts became more abundant and afforded excellent going, so that when we were about 6 miles from Hut Point we were doing about 2 miles an hour. After this, and especially during the 8th mile from Hut Point, we met with a lot of hummocky cracks where the ice had been pressed up into long ridges and subsequently had been drifted up, forming very difficult sastrugi and providing much trouble for a sledge. We still had sufficient daylight, and after lunch, moonlight, to negotiate these, though it was easy to see how much trouble they might give one in the dark, as they did on our way out.

All the day we were watching the changes in some iridescent clouds which hung low on the northern horizon.