Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/71

At one spot we appeared again to have come to an impasse, for one of the largest and most chaotic pressure ridges had actually come up against the rock face of the Crozier cliffs, but we found a man-hole in the space between the ice and the rock which was big enough, and only just big enough, for us to crawl through one by one. [Bill disappeared into the hole, and we followed and managed to wriggle through, working ourselves over a gully the other side by jamming our bodies against one side with our legs against the cliff on the other. In another place we got up another hole between two jams of pressure, rather like an enlarged rabbit-hole. The place was strewn with fallen ice blocks and rocks, and if one fell on us we should have finished, also if the Barrier had just then chosen to give a squeeze.] We had to leave the sledge here. Once past this we were in an enclosed snow pit with an almost vertical wall which required about fifteen steps to be cut to get out of it. From here we had again a series of drift troughs between the rock cliffs and the pressure ridges until at last we got out on to the actual ice foot, overhanging the sea ice by a small overhanging cliff of 10 or 12 feet. This was the lowest point of the ice foot and there was no snow drift running down from it on to the sea ice anywhere. This rather suggests that even this bay ice was not at all old as yet—possibly not even a month old. Farther on round the foot of the Crozier rock cliffs the ice foot cliff was very considerably higher, 20 to 30 feet.

The light was rapidly failing when we at last reached the sea ice, and we had to be very quick in doing what