We determined to try to cross the ravine, at the bottom of which we were excited to see a number of seals and Emperor penguins dotted over the ice floor. At last by means of making fast the Alpine rope to the bow of the sledge we reached the bottom, and there Mackay killed two penguins to replenish our exhausted larder. Meanwhile Mawson was looking out for a spot where we might swarm up, and as I was feeling much exhausted, I asked him to take over the leadership of the expedition. I considered myself justified in taking this step as the work assigned to us by our leader was accomplished, and we were within two or three miles of our depot and had no reason to fear the danger of starvation. On the other hand, as regards our ultimate personal safety, our position was rather critical. In the first place, we were not even certain that the _Nimrod_ had arriven in Ross Sea; in the second place, assuming that she had, if was quite possible that she would miss sighting our depot flags altogether. In the event of the ship not appearing within a few days, it would have been necessary to take immediate action with a view either to winter at the Drygalski depot or to an attempt to sledge over the steeply crevassed glacier for over 200 miles to Cape Royds. Even at the moment, had some immediate strenuous action been necessary from the _Nimrod_ suddenly appearing, I thought that it would be best for Mawson, who was less physically exhausted than I was, to be in charge. He had, throughout the whole journey, shown excellent capacity for leadership, and when I spoke to him he at first demurred, but finally said he would act for a time. At first we thought that there was one very difficult but apparently possible means of ascent up the cliff face; our efforts, however, in this direction were doomed to failure, and we were compelled to retrace our steps up the ravine down which we had previously lowered the sledge. This was a tremendous labour, for we could only force the sledge up a few inches at a time; eventually, however, we found ourselves on the level plain at the top of the ravine, but, of course, on the wrong side as far as our depot was concerned. There we thought it safe to camp, for we were within three miles of the open sea, and had the _Nimrod_ sighted our depot flag and stood in to the coast, we could easily have hurried down to the entrance of the inlet and made signals to her. At 7 A.M. we turned in after toiling for twenty-three hours, and at about a quarter-past seven, as we learnt later, the _Nimrod_ must have passed; but owing to a light wind with snow drift she was unable to sight either our depot flag or tent. Having had four hours' rest we packed our sledge and started along the north bank of the snow gorge, the snow and ice at the bottom being dotted with basking seals and moulting Emperor penguins.