Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 1.djvu/218

122 There was something too depressing in finding the old hut in such a desolate condition. I had had so much interest in seeing all the old landmarks and the huts apparently intact. To camp outside and feel that all the old comfort and cheer had departed, was dreadfully heartrending. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. It seems a fundamental expression of civilised human sentiment that men who come to such places as this should leave what comfort they can to welcome those who follow, and finding that such a simple duty had been neglected by our immediate predecessors oppressed me horribly.

Monday, January 16.—We slept badly till the morning and, therefore, late. After breakfast we went up the hills; there was a keen S.E. breeze, but the sun shone and my spirits revived. There was very much less snow everywhere than I had ever seen. The ski run was completely cut through in two places, the Gap and Observation Hill almost bare, a great bare slope on the side of Arrival Heights, and on top of Crater Heights an immense bare table-land. How delighted we should have been to see it like this in the old days! The pond was thawed and the confervæ green in fresh water. The hole which we had dug in the mound in the pond was still there, as Meares discovered by falling into it up to his waist and getting very wet.

On the south side we could see the Pressure Ridges beyond Pram Point as of old—Horseshoe Bay calm and unpressed—the sea ice pressed on Pram Point and along the Gap ice foot, and a new ridge running around