Sadly and reluctantly they had to give up hopes of making their station at Cape Crozier, and this [Page 224] was all the harder to bear because every detail of the shore promised well for a wintering party. There were comfortable quarters for the hut, ice for water snow for the animals, good slopes for skiing, proximity to the Barrier and to the rookeries of two types of penguins, good ground for biological work, a fairly easy approach to the Southern Road with no chance of being cut off, and so forth. 'It is a thousand pities to have to abandon such a spot.'
The _Discovery's_ post-office was still standing as erect as when it had been planted, and comparisons between what was before their eyes and old photographs showed that no change at all seemed to have occurred anywhere--a result that in the case of the Barrier caused very great surprise.
In the meantime all hands were employed in making a running survey, the program of which was:
Bruce continually checking speed with hand log.
Bowers taking altitudes of objects as they come abeam. Nelson noting results.
Pennell taking verge plate bearings on bow and quarter. Cherry-Garrard noting results.
Evans taking verge plate bearings abeam. Atkinson noting results.
Campbell taking distances abeam with range finder. Wright noting results.
Rennick sounding with Thomson machine. Drake noting results.
[Page 225] 'We plotted the Barrier edge from the point at which we met it to the Crozier cliffs; to the eye it seems scarcely to have changed since _Discovery_ days, and Wilson thinks it meets the cliff in the same place.'
Very early on Wednesday morning they rounded Cape Bird and came in sight of Mount Discovery and the Western Mountains. 'It was good to see them again, and perhaps after all we are better this side of the Island. It gives one a homely feeling to see such a familiar scene.' Scott's great wish now was to find a place for winter quarters that would not easily be cut off from the Barrier, and a cape, which in the _Discovery_ days had been called 'the Skuary,' was chosen. 'It was separated from old _Discovery_ quarters by two deep bays on either side of the Glacier Tongue, and I thought that these bays would remain frozen until late in the season, and that when they froze over again the ice would soon become firm.'