When the day commenced with ideal weather I thought I would cover a long distance, but at 5.30 P.M., after six and a quarter miles, I felt nerve-worn and had to camp, "so worn that had it not been a delightful evening, I should not have found strength to erect the tent." Though the medical outfit was limited, there were a fair number of bandages and on camping I devoted much time to tending raw patches all over the body, festering fingers and inflamed nostrils. High wind and much drift put travelling out of the question on January 12, and in any case my feet needed a rest. "January 13.--The wind subsided and the snow cleared off at noon. The afternoon was beautifully fine. Descended hard ice-slopes over many crevasses--almost all descent--but surface cut my feet up; at 8 P.M. camped, having done five and three-quarter miles--painful feet--on camping find feet worse than ever; things look bad but shall persevere. It is now 11 P.M. and the glacier is firing off like artillery--appears to send up great jets of imprisoned air." During the march Aurora Peak showed up to the west, about twenty miles away, across the Mertz Glacier. I felt happy at thus fixing my position, and at the sight of the far plateau which led onwards to Winter Quarters. The glacier was the next obstacle to advance. To the south-west it descended from the plateau in immense broken folds. Pressing northward it was torn into the jumbled crush of serac-ice, sparkling beneath an unclouded sun. The idea of diverging to the west and rounding the ice-falls occurred to me, but the detours involved other difficulties, so I strove to pick out the best track across the valley. A high wind which blew on the morning of the 14th diminished in strength by noon and allowed me to get away. The sun was so warm that the puckered ice underfoot was covered with a film of water and in some places small trickles ran away to disappear into crevasses. Though the course was downhill to the Mertz Glacier, the sledge required a good deal of pulling owing to the wet runners. At 9 P.M., after travelling five miles, I pitched camp in the bed of the glacier. Between 9.30 P.M. and 11 P.M. the "cannonading" heard on the previous night recommenced. The sounds, resembling the explosions of heavy guns, usually started higher up the glacier and ended down towards the sea. When I first heard them, I put my head outside the tent to see what was going on. The reports came at random from every direction, but there was no visible evidence as to how they were produced. Without a doubt they had something to do with the re-freezing and splitting of the ice owing to the evening chill; but the sounds seemed far too loud to be explained by this cause alone.