The Home of the Blizzard / Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914

I was confronted with this problem: whether it was better to enjoy life for a few days, sleeping and eating my fill until the provisions gave out, or to "plug on" again in hunger with the prospect of plunging at any moment into eternity without the great luxury and pleasure of food. And then an idea presented itself which greatly improved my prospects. It was to construct a ladder from alpine rope; one end of which was to be secured to the bow of the sledge and the other to be carried over my left shoulder and loosely attached to the sledge harness. Thus, if I fell into a crevasse again, it would be easy for me, even though weakened by starvation, to scramble out again by the ladder, provided the sledge was not also engulphed.

Notwithstanding the possibilities of the rope ladder, I could not sleep properly at all; my nerves had been so overtaxed. All night considerable wind and drift continued.

On the 19th it was overcast and light snow was falling. I resolved "to go ahead and leave the rest to Providence."

As they wallowed through the deep snow my feet and legs kept breaking through into space. Then I went right under, but the sledge was held back and the ladder "proved trumps." A few minutes later I was down again, but I emerged again without much exertion, half-smothered with snow. Faintness overcame me and I stopped to camp, though only a short distance had been covered.

All around me was a leaden glare, the snow clouds "corralling" me in. The sun had not shown up for some days and I was eager to see it once more, not only that it might show up the landscape, but for its cheerful influence and life-giving energy. A few days previously my condition had been improving, but now it was going back.

During the night of the 18th loud booming noises, sharp cracks and muffled growls issued form the neighbouring crevasses and kept waking me up. At times one could feel a vibration accompanying the growling sounds, and I concluded that the ice was in rapid motion.

The sun at last appeared on the 19th, and I was off by 8.30 A.M. The whole surface was a network of crevasses, some very wide. Along one after another of these I dragged the sledge until a spot was reached where the snow-bridge looked to be firm. Here I plunged across, risking the consequences.

After three hours' marching nothing serious had happened and I found myself on safer ground with a "pimply" surface visible ahead, close under the slopes of the highlands. Once on this I became over-reliant, and in consequence sank several times into narrow fissures.

At 1 P.M. the Mertz Glacier was at last crossed and I had reached the rising hills on its western side. Overlooking the camp, five hundred feet above the glacier, were beetling, crevassed crags, but I could trace out a good road, free from pitfalls, leading to the plateau, at an elevation of three thousand feet.

To lighten my load for the climb I threw away alpine rope, finnesko crampons, sundry pairs of worn crampons and socks, while I rubbed a composition on the sledge-runners which prevented them from sticking to wet snow.

January 20 was a wretched day; overcast, with wind and light drift. In desperation I got away at 2 P.M. in a wind which proved to be of considerable assistance. I could see nothing of my surroundings; one thing was certain, and that was that the ascent had commenced and every foot took me upward. The day's work amounted to about two and a half miles.

On the 21st the sun shone brightly and there was a good following wind. Through deep snow I zigzagged up for three miles before deciding to camp.

Wind and drift prevailed early on the 22nd but fell away towards noon, and I was then favoured with a glorious sunny day. Away to the north was a splendid view of the open sea; it looked so beautiful and friendly that I longed to be down near it. Six miles had been covered during the day, but I felt very weak towards the end on account of the heavy pulling.

During the early hours of the 23rd the sun was visible, but about 8 A.M. the clouds sagged low, the wind rose and everything became blotted out in a swirl of driving snow.

I wandered on through it for several hours, the sledge capsizing at times owing to the strength of the wind. It was not possible to keep an accurate course, for even the wind changed direction as the day wore on. Underfoot there was soft snow which I found comfortable for my sore feet, but which made the sledge drag heavily at times.

When camp was pitched at 4 P.M. I reckoned that the distance covered in a straight line had been three and a half miles.

Erecting the tent single-handed in the high wind was a task which required much patience and some skill. The poles were erected first and then the tent was gathered up in the proper form and taken to the windward side of the legs where it was weighted down. The flounce on the windward side was got into position and piled up with snow blocks. Other blocks of snow had previously been placed in a ring round the legs in readiness to be tumbled on to the rest of the flounce when the tent was quickly slipped over the apex of the poles. In very windy weather it was often as much as two hours after halting before I would be cosy within the shelter of the tent.

High wind and dense driving snow persisted throughout the 24th and I made five and a half miles, sitting on the sledge most of the time with the sail up.

The blizzard continued on the 25th, but after the trying experience of the previous two days, I did not feel well enough to go on. Outside, the snow fell in "torrents," piled up round the tent and pressed in until it was no bigger than a coffin, of which it reminded me.

I passed most of the day doctoring myself, attending to raw and inflamed places. Tufts of my beard and hair came out, and the snowy floor of the tent was strewn with it at every camp.

"January 26.—I went on again in dense, driving snow. There was no need of the sail. The wind, which was behind, caught the sledge and bundled it along so that, though over a soft surface of snow, the travelling was rapid. The snow was in large, rounded grains, and beat on the tent like hail. Altogether nine miles were covered.

"January 27.—Blizzard-bound again. The previous day's exertions were too much for me to undertake the same again without a long rest.

"January 28,—In the morning the wind had moderated very much but the sky remained overcast and snow continued to fall. It was a long job digging the tent out. Soon after the start the sun gleamed and the weather improved. The three-thousand-foot crest of the plateau had been crossed and I was bearing down rapidly on Commonwealth Bay, the vicinity of which showed up as a darker patch on the clouds of the north-west horizon.

"The evening was fine and I really began to feel that Winter Quarters were approaching. To increase my excitement Madigan Nunatak came into view for a time in the clear, evening light. Distance covered, over eight miles."

The calm of the previous evening was broken again, and I started on the morning of January 29 in considerable drift and a fairly strong wind. After going five miles I had miraculous good fortune.

I was travelling along on an even down grade and was wondering how long the two pounds of food which remained would last, when something dark loomed through the drift a short distance away to the right. All sorts of possibilities fled through my mind as I headed the sledge for it. The unexpected happened—it was a cairn of snow erected by McLean, Hodgeman and Hurley, who had been out searching for us. On the top of the mound was a bag of food, left on the chance that it might be picked up, while in a tin was a note stating the bearing and distance of the mound from Aladdin's Cave (E. 30 degrees S., distance twenty-three miles), that the Ship had arrived at the Hut and was waiting, that Amundsen had reached the Pole, and that Scott was remaining another year in Antarctica.

It was rather a singular fact that the search party only left this mound at eight o'clock on the morning of that very day (January 29). It was about 2 P.M. when I found it. Thus, during the night of the 28th, our camps had been only about five miles apart.

With plenty of food, I speedily felt stimulated and revived, and anticipated reaching the Hut in a day or two, for there was then not more than twenty-three miles to cover. Alas, however, there was to be another delay. I was without crampons—they had been thrown away on the western side of Mertz Glacier—and in the strong wind was not able to stand up on the slippery ice of the coastal slopes. The result was that I sat on the sledge and ran along with the wind, nibbling at the food as I went. The sledge made so much leeway that near the end of the day, after fourteen miles, I reckoned that I had been carried to the east of Aladdin's Cave. The course was therefore changed to the west, but the wind came down almost broadside-on to the sledge, and it was swept away. The only thing to do was to camp.

On the 30th I cut up the box of the theodolite and into two pieces of wood stuck as many screws and tacks as I could procure from the sledge-meter. In the repair-bag there were still a few ice-nails which at this time were of great use. Late in the day the wind fell off, and I started westward over the ice-slopes with the pieces of nail-studded wood lashed to my feet.

After six miles these improvised crampons broke up, and the increasing wind got me into difficulties. Finally, the sledge slipped sideways into a narrow crevasse and was caught by the boom (which crossed from side to side at the lower part of the mast). I was not strong enough for the job of extricating it straight away, and by the time I had got it safely on the ice, the wind had increased still more. So I pitched camp.

The blizzard was in full career on January 31 and I spent all day and until late at night trying to make the crampons serviceable, but without success.

On February 1 the wind and drift subsided late in the afternoon, and I clearly saw to the west the beacon which marked Aladdin's Cave.

At 7 P.M. I reached this haven within the ice, and never again was I to have the ordeal of pitching the tent. Inside the cave were three oranges and a pineapple which had been brought from the Ship. It was wonderful once more to be in the land of such things!

I waited to mend one of the crampons and then started off for the Hut; but a blizzard had commenced. To descend the five miles of steep icy slopes with my miserable crampons, in the weak state in which I found myself, would only have been as a last resort. So I camped in the comfortable cave and hoped for better weather next day.

The high wind, rising to a hurricane at times, continued for a whole week with dense drift until the 8th. I spent the long hours making crampons of a new pattern, eating and sleeping. Eventually I became so anxious that I used to sit outside the cave for long spells, watching for a lull in the wind.

At length I resolved to go down in the blizzard, sitting on the sledge as long as possible, blown along by the wind. I was making preparations for a start when the wind suddenly decreased and my opportunity had come.

In a couple of hours I was within one mile and a half of the Hut. There was no sign of the Ship lying in the offing, but I comforted myself with the thought that she might be still at the anchorage and have swung inshore so as to be hidden by the ice-cliffs, or on the other hand that Captain Davis might have been along the coast to the east searching there.

But even as I gazed about seeking for a clue, a speck on the north-west horizon caught my eye and my hopes went down. It looked like a distant ship; it might well have been the 'Aurora'. Well, what matter! the long journey was at an end-a terrible chapter of my life was finished!

Then the rocks around Winter Quarters began to come into view, part of the basin of the boat harbour appeared, and lo! there were human figures! They almost seemed unreal—I was in a dream—but after a brief moment one of them saw me and waved an arm, I replied, there was a commotion and they all ran towards the Hut. Then they were lost, for the crest of the first steep slope hid them. It almost seemed to me that they had run away to hide.

Minutes passed, and I slowly went along with the sledge. Then a head rose over the brow of the hill and there was Bickerton, breathless after a long run. I expect he considered for a while which one of us it was. Soon we had shaken hands and he knew all in a few brief words, and I learned that the Ship had left earlier in the day. Madigan, McLean, Bage and Hodgeman arrived, and then a new-comer—Jeffryes. Five men had remained behind to make a search for our party, and Jeffryes was a new wireless operator brought down by Captain Davis.

We were soon at the Hut where I found that full preparations had been made for wintering a second year. The weather was calm and the Ship was no distance away so I decided to recall her by wireless. The masts at the Hut had been re-erected during the summer, and on board the 'Aurora' Hannam was provided with a wireless receiving set. Jeffryes had arranged with Hannam to call up at 8, 9 and 10 P.M. for several evenings while the 'Aurora' was "within range" in case there were any news of my party. A message recalling the Ship was therefore sent off and repeated at frequent intervals till past midnight.

Next morning there was a forty-mile wind when we went outside, but away across Commonwealth Bay to the west the 'Aurora' could be seen close to the face of the ice-cliffs. She had returned in response to the call and was steaming up and down, waiting for the wind to moderate.

We immediately set to work getting all the records, instruments and personal gear ready to be taken down to the boat harbour in anticipation of calm weather during the day.

The wind chose to continue and towards evening was in the sixties, while the barometer fell. During the afternoon Hodgeman went across to the western ridge and saw that the Ship was still in the Bay. The sea was so heavy that the motor-boat could never have lived through it.

That night Jeffryes sent another message, which we learned afterwards was not received, in which Captain Davis was given the option of remaining until calm weather supervened or of leaving at once for the Western Base. I felt that the decision should be left to him, as he could appreciate exactly the situation of the Western Base and what the Ship could be expected to do amid the ice at that season of the year. The time was already past when, according to my written instructions left for him on arrival at Commonwealth Bay, the 'Aurora' should sail west to relieve Wild and his party.

On the morning of the 10th there was no sign of the Ship and evidently Captain Davis had decided to wait no longer, knowing that further delay would endanger the chances of picking up the eight men who had elected to winter on the shelf-ice one thousand five hundred miles to the west. At such a critical moment determination, fearless and swift, was necessary, and, in coming to his momentous decision, Captain Davis acted well and for the best interests of the Expedition.

A long voyage lay before the 'Aurora' through many miles of ice-strewn sea, swept by intermittent blizzards and shrouded now in midnight darkness. We still fostered the hope that the vessel's coal-supply would be sufficient for her to return to Adelie Land and make an attempt to pick us up. But it was not to be.

The long Antarctic winter was fast approaching and we turned to meet it with resolution, knowing that if the 'Aurora' failed us in early March, that the early summer of the same year would bring relief.

CHAPTER XIV THE QUEST OF THE SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE

Dr. R. BAGE

On the afternoon of November 10, at Aladdin's Cave, after a convivial hoosh, Webb, Hurley and I said good-bye to Dr. Mawson's party and made off south for the eleven and three-quarter mile cave where our Supporting Party, Murphy, Hunter and Laseron, were waiting for us. At 7 P.M. we started almost at a run over the smooth ice, to the accompaniment of hearty cheers from Dr. Mawson, Ninnis, and Mertz; two of whom we were never to see again.

Half a mile of this easy going, and we were on snow for the first time with a loaded sledge. Uphill snow, too, and the wind rising, so it was no small relief when we finally made the Cathedral Grotto at 11.30 P.M., and found Murphy's tent pitched alongside it. The wind by this time was about forty-five miles per hour and, it being nearly dusk, the crevasses—a five-mile belt—had been fairly difficult to negotiate.

We soon had the cave clear of snow, had a good meal and then slept the sleep of the just, feeling well content with the first day's work—eleven and a half miles from home at an altitude of one thousand nine hundred feet. We were off at last on a search for the Magnetic Pole.

On the morrow some time was spent in rearranging the loads. Finally, both parties moved off south into heavy wind and fairly thick drift. What with the ground rising steadily, the pressure of the wind and our lack of condition, two and a quarter hours of solid work realized only two and a quarter miles; so we decided to camp.

All the night it blew hard, between seventy and eighty miles per hour, and next day it was still blowing and drifting heavily. Our tent was a good deal smaller than Murphy's, and, as Webb and Hurley are both six-footers, we always had to put all gear outside when the sleeping-bags were down. This is really a good thing when the weather is bad, as one is not tempted to stay in the bag all the time.

Early in the afternoon as we were all feeling hungry and had been in bags long enough to feel cold, although the weather was quite warm (10 degrees F.), we rolled bags, and, when our frozen burberrys were once fairly on, quite enjoyed ourselves. After a boil-up and a few minutes' "run" round in the drift and wind, we did some stitching on our light drill tent, which was making very heavy weather of it, although pitched close under the lee of Murphy's strong japara tent. A little reading, some shouted unintelligible conversation with the other tent, another boil-up, and, last but not least, a smoke, found us quite ready for another sleep.

Next day (November 13), the wind having dropped to thirty-five miles per hour, we set out about 11 A.M. in light drift. The sky was still overcast, so the light was very trying. In the worst fogs at home one can at any rate see something of the ground on which one is treading; in Adelie Land, even when the air was clear of snow, it was easy to bump against a four-foot sastruga without seeing it. It always reminded me most of a fog at sea: a ship creeping "o'er the hueless, viewless deep."

When 6 P.M. arrived we had only covered five and a half miles, but were all thoroughly exhausted and glad to camp. Lunch had been rather barbarously served in the lee of the sledge. First came plasmon biscuit, broken with the ice-axe into pieces small enough to go into the mouth through the funnel of a burberry helmet; then followed two ounces of chocolate, frozen rather too hard to have a definite taste; and finally a luscious morsel—two ounces of butter, lovingly thawed-out in the mouth to get the full flavour. Lunches like these in wind and drift are uncomfortable enough for every one to be eager to start again as soon as possible.

By nine o'clock that night the wind had increased to a full gale. We were in camp all the 14th and the 15th, the wind rising to eighty-five miles per hour with very heavy drift during the small hours of the 15th. This was its maximum, and by the afternoon it was down to about seventy miles per hour with a clear sky and light drift. We donned our burberrys (I should like to give Hurley's "Ode to a Frozen Burberry") and dug out our sledges, both of which were completely buried in a ramp forty yards long; the shovel projecting nine inches above the surface.

While we were engaged on this work, I overheard the following conversation being shouted in the Supporting Party's tent:

FIRST VOICE. I'm hungry. Who will go out and get the food-bag?

SLEEPY VOICE. The food-weights ** are in the cooker.

FIRST VOICE. No they're not.

SLEEPY VOICE. Saw them there yesterday, must be somewhere in the tent.

FIRST VOICE. No they're not... I ate them last night.

The exercise, a good hoosh and above all the clear sky made us take a less morbid view of the fact that we were six days out from the Hut and only nineteen and a half miles away.

Early on the 16th we could hear above the roar of the wind the drift still hissing against the tent, but it had diminished by nine o'clock breakfast.

By common consent it was agreed that our loads were too heavy for the conditions under which we were working. I accordingly decided to drop one hundred-pound bag. We had already saved nearly one week's food for three men and had not yet worked up our full sledging appetites. The bag was raised to the top of a six-foot snow mound, a thermograph being placed alongside. As we now seemed to be on plateau snow, I thought it wise to leave behind my heavy boots and Swiss crampons.

By 4 P.M. the wind had decreased to a light breeze. Work was very slow on a steeper up grade, and at six o'clock clouds came up quickly from the south-east and snow began to fall, so we camped at 7.30 P.M. thoroughly tired out. At twenty-four and a half miles the altitude was three thousand two hundred feet.

The snow was a false alarm. It ceased at 9 P.M. and the wind subsided to a dead calm!!

Good headway was being made against a strong breeze next day, when it was noticed that two gallons of kerosene were missing off the supporters' sledge. While Murphy and Laseron went back two miles to recover them, Webb secured a magnetic declination and I took sun observations for time and azimuth.

We were off early on the 18th and for the first time were able to appreciate the "scenery." Glorious sunshine overhead and all around brilliant snow, dappled by livid shadows; very different from the smooth, soft, white mantle usually attributed to the surface of Antarctica by those in the homeland. Here and there, indeed, were smooth patches which we called bowling-greens, but hard and slippery as polished marble, with much the same translucent appearance. Practically all the country, however, was a jumbled mass of small, hard sastrugi, averaging perhaps a foot in height, with an occasional gnarled old veteran twice as high. To either side the snow rolled away for miles. In front, we made our first acquaintance with the accursed next ridge, which is always ahead of you on the plateau. Generally we passed from one ridge to another so gradually that we could never say for certain just when we had topped one; still the next ridge was always there.

The weather had lately been colder with the increased altitude. The temperature in daily range varied from -10 degrees F. to 9 degrees F. It was so hot in the sun, on the 18th, that lunching inside the tent was unbearable. We preferred its shadow outside in the breeze.

Wearing a minimum of clothes, we marched along gaily during the afternoon. The country changed in a wonderful manner, the sastrugi gradually becoming smaller and finally disappearing. The surface was so soft that a bamboo would easily penetrate it for a foot. Evidently it was fairly old and laid down in calm weather, for excavations showed that it became more compact without any hard wind-swept layers marking successive snowfalls.

It was proved that we were commencing a descent of one thousand five hundred feet down the north side of a valley feeding the Mertz Glacier. In order to explain the surface, smooth and unruffled by any wind, the question arose as to whether it is possible that there is a cushion of dead air more or less permanently over the north side of this depression.

On the soft surface we were able to dispense with crampons. Hitherto, it had been impossible to haul over a slippery surface in finnesko. Now we felt as light as air and were vastly cheered when some one calculated that the six of us were saving I don't know how many thousand foot-pounds of work every mile. With a run of twelve miles we were forty-two miles from Winter Quarters.

Another splendid day on the 19th. We had lunch in a curious cup-shaped hollow, estimated to be two miles wide and one hundred and fifty feet deep. Webb obtained here an approximate dip of 88 degrees 44',** a very promising increase from the Hut (87 degrees 27').

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Map showing track of the southern sledging party from the Main Base

Snow-blindness had now begun to make itself felt for the first time. I for one had my first experience of it that afternoon. During the halt at lunch I put on yellow goggles in place of the smoked ones I had been wearing, and in a quarter of an hour the change of colour had 'settled' my eyes for the time being.

The afternoon was very hot. The thermometer stood at 10 degrees F. at 4 P.M., but the still air made it almost insupportable. By the time the load was hauled up out of the basin, we were streaming with perspiration.

Before halting, we sighted a dark, distant ridge, thirty miles away, and the course was corrected by its bearing. Our extravagant hopes of finding a permanently calm region had been dwindling for the last few miles, as a hard bottom, a few inches under the surface, had become evident. They were finally dispelled by a south-west wind springing up during the night.

As every one was beginning to feel the hard work after another oppressive afternoon on the 20th, we decided to have an easy march next day and to build our first depot. Of course we had hoped to have been farther out before sending back the supporting party, but the weather had settled the question.

On the 21st, taking things as easily as a thirty-five mile wind would permit, we pulled on, up and down small undulations till 4 P.M. when we encountered a small rise, with the next ridge a considerable distance ahead. The depot was to be built here.

Webb at once proceeded to take full magnetic declination, time and azimuth observations, Laseron recording for him. Murphy put in a miserable hour over the primus melting snow. He was rather snow-blind and his eyes must have contributed a good deal of water to the pot. The water was poured into food-bags filled with snow, which were buried, encircled by wire slings, in holes. Here they froze, making excellent holdfasts for the depot flag. Depot flags had been exercising our ingenuity for months before the start, ordinary forms being destroyed by the wind in a few hours. Webb had finally built the perfect flag of the wind-vane type: a V of pieces of blackened Venesta board with light struts at the back and a piece of aeroplane tubing at the apex which slipped over the bamboo pole. The pole, of two bamboos, stood sixteen feet from the ground and was provided with two sets of flexible steel stays. Close by, Hurley and Hunter had built a snow mound ten feet in diameter and ten feet in height, finished off with a capping of snow blocks wrapped in black bunting.

Next day it was blowing a little harder and the sky was overcast, snow falling all day. What bad light means can be gathered from the fact that Laseron on crawling out of the tent in the morning raised an alarm that our tent had been blown away in the night. It turned out that our tent was hidden by a mound which he could not see, though only about ten yards from it.

I had been given the option of relieving the supporting party of any of their gear I coveted and I used it freely. The sledgemeter was the first thing commandeered, ours, made by Correll, having developed some slight complaint in its interior. Their cooker, being in good condition, was also taken. We all cast longing eyes at the roomy wind-proof tent but finally decided that it was too heavy—forty pounds as against our own of twenty-six pounds, including tent and poles.

At 7 P.M. we said good-bye to our supporters, Hurley exposed the last plate of his big reflex camera, which they carried back to the Hut, and a few minutes later Webb, Hurley, and I were standing alone watching three black specks disappearing in the drift; a stiff wind helping them along in great style. We were left to our own resources now, for better or for worse. "Weird" is how I described my feelings in the diary.

The same night it blew a hurricane and only dropped to sixty miles per hour during the 23rd, compelling us to remain in camp. Not an ideal birthday for Webb, but we made the most of it. I quote from my diary: "Turned out and rolled bags at 3 P.M. for lunch, for which we opened a wee tin of bacon ration brought for the occasion. Had some extra lumps of sugar (collared from the eleven-mile cave) in our tea. After the wine had been round (i.e. after a special second cup of tea), I gave Eric a pair of stockings from Murphy, and then 'Hoyle' and I smoked a cigar each which Webb produced. Dinner at 7 was also a special affair as we had the remains of the bacon ration in the hoosh, with great effect. Also an extra strong brew of cocoa boiled quite smooth. Burberrys on and a stroll outside in the wind for a yard or two to get up a circulation; then into bag where I am smoking a plebeian pipe which is very tame after the glories of the day, especially as I suspect my tobacco of being a bit damp."

Such was the first of the two "auspicious occasions" we had on the journey.

After going carefully through the gear, we discarded a pickaxe, one pair of big spiked boots and some odd clothing. We also decided, as the probability of leisure was not great, to leave our reading matter behind. It was with regret that I added my little 'Virginibus Puerisque' to the small pile of "rejects." The load now amounted to seven hundred and forty-eight pounds in all. Not many days after, the floor-cloth (eight pounds) was left behind, as the japara sail afforded ample protection from damp in the low temperatures of the plateau.

The dip-circle, which was to yield the most important result of our journey, was housed after much thought on a conveniently shaped kerosene tray between the tins of oil. Four light leather straps, buckled tightly, made a solid mass of tray, oil tins, and dip-circle; very safe, and easy to undo.

My orders were to proceed inland, due south, taking magnetic, geographical, meteorological, and such other observations as were possible, returning to the Hut not later than January 15. Dr. Mawson had left it to my discretion, in the event of any great change occurring in the declination, to go either true or magnetic south.

At the Hut and up to about sixty miles south of it, the declination had proved fairly constant, but now at the Southern Cross Depot, as we had christened the sixty-seven-mile camp, the compass, from pointing a little to the east of south, had travelled to 40 degrees east of south, so that it became obvious that there was considerable magnetic disturbance in the country over which we were travelling. Whether we went south or south-east seemed unlikely to affect the value of geographical and other information we might gather, while Webb was of the opinion that the best magnetic results would be obtained by marching directly towards the Magnetic Pole, particularly if there were disturbances over the intervening area. For these reasons the course was maintained magnetic south.

At 11 A.M. on Sunday, November 24, we moved off to the south-east in a wind of fifty miles an hour. The light was bad, and steering had to be done by sastrugi and wind. However, momentary glimpses of the sun served to check the course. The lunch camp was five miles from the depot, and a good mound with a top of black bunting was left there. At almost every halt, thus far on our journey, the snow cut for pitching the tent had been gathered up into a mound which, in addition to forming a landmark, could often be used as a back-mark for checking the course. Our depot thus had a mound four miles on the southern and five miles on the northern side of it. It was not marked as well as I had hoped, but under the circumstances we could not do better. Moreover, at intervals during the day, some very distinctive snow ramps had appeared in the valley, some five miles to the north-east, and their position was fixed relative to the course.

Our hopes for a good afternoon were disappointed, as the wind and drift came up again as strong as ever. The surface, too, grew worse; nothing but sastrugi eighteen inches to thirty inches high and very close together. We were marching a little to the east of the wind, and the sledge was continually blown sideways, making considerable leeway. By 8.30 P.M. it was blowing sixty miles per hour, so we halted, thoroughly tired out, having hauled our one-third of a ton eight and three-quarter miles.

When it is blowing hard, the end of the day's march is not the end of the day's work. As soon as a camping spot has been chosen, the sledge is pulled round head to wind. The straps round the load are loosened carefully, the shovel and tent removed and the straps retightened. One man starts breaking out chunks of snow, experimenting until he finds a place where large pieces come away readily. Lumps of forty pounds are the handiest and quickest, but often only smaller ones can be obtained. These are arranged in a circle round the tent-site, while the man with the tent places it on the ground pointing upwind, the bottom of the poles being just where the middle windward leg will be, and makes a hole for that leg.

When everything is ready, all three catch hold of the tent, one man crawling half into it, gripping hard the leather loop on the windward leg. The others sort out and grip their two side legs. "All ready? Up!" It almost takes one's breath away, the roar and the flap! The side legs are quickly separated as the tent rises, and before it can blow over, the leeward legs are more or less in position, taking the strain. The centre man is throwing all his weight on to the leather loop, while the other two outside each holds down his windward pole with one hand and with the other pulls blocks of snow on to the skirt to windward. Once this is done, the rest is simple: cutting holes in just the right positions for the other legs, pulling out the skirt and making it snug all round. Then in goes the floor-cloth, and, by the time that is spread out properly, the primus and cooker are passed in. The cooker is dissected and the two water vessels passed out to be filled with snow. The cook will have hard work to get the primus started if he does not shield the spirit flame from the wind, which blows through the tent, by putting the whole lamp inside the big cooker lid.

In come the pots filled with lumps of snow. The food tank is placed just outside the entrance, and the proper food-bags for the meal are passed in to the cook, the tank being retied to keep out drift. The cooker will now be going at full pressure, and the cook is ready to receive the gear. Sleeping-bags, "computation bag," hypsometer, "meat block" (a three-inch-square paper pad on which meteorological notes were taken); clothes-bag opened, three ditty-bags passed in and bag retied; a final temperature taken and aneroid read; sledge anchored securely by tow-rope to the ice-axe, and a final look round to see all gear is safely strapped down and snow-tight.

In calm weather, camping is a very different thing. On a fine day, half an hour after the halt would usually find us carefully scraping the last of the hoosh out of our pannikins, ready for the cocoa.

At the seventy-six-mile camp we tried the experiment of a break-wind. The tent was so small and light that it was necessary to protect it in the heavy winds. Hurley and I took about three-quarters of an hour to build the first one, but later we improved, getting into the knack of hewing snow with a sharp-pointed shovel.

That night in bag I wrote: "The result of the breakwind is that for once we have the wind bluffed. It is blowing seventy-five miles per hour—a full hurricane—but all the viciousness is taken out of the flapping and there will be no damage done to the tent by morning."

The wind was too strong for travelling early in the day (November 25). While outside we suddenly observed two snow petrels. It was hard to realize that they had actually flown seventy-six miles inland to a height of two thousand four hundred and fifty feet. I dashed inside for the fishingline; Hurley got out the camera. They were a beautiful sight, hovering with outspread wings just above the snow, tipping it with their feet now and then, to poise without a flutter in a sixty-five-mile gale. Hurley secured a couple of "snaps" at the expense of badly frost-bitten hands. Just as I arrived with the line hooked and baited, the birds flew away to the north-east; our visions of fresh meat went with them. The line was always ready after this.

Towards evening the wind dropped suddenly to twenty miles per hour. Our camp was stationed on the southern side of the large valley we had entered on the 18th, and we could identify the ridge crossed on that date, blue and dim, forty miles away to the north. To the north-east could be seen a distinct dip in the skyline, indicating the bed of the valley, on whose northern side the dip met the higher skyline in a steep bluff, twenty-five miles off. This bluff under the glasses was of heavily crevassed, blue ice.

The wind did not rise again much until 10 P.M., when we had moved on seven and a half miles, rising about three hundred feet over several ridges and practically losing our view to the north.

A steady breeze on the 26th, and, on the whole, good light, allowed us to make twelve miles.

Each day, now, Webb took an approximate magnetic dip and declination in the lee of the break-wind. This was necessary in order to get some idea of local disturbances. Also, it gave us some vague idea as to the direction in which lay the South Magnetic Pole. For instance, at the eighty-three-and-three-quarter-mile camp, the needle showed the Pole to be 18 degrees east of true south, while at our lunch camp that day, six miles farther on, it was given as 50 degrees east of south. The dip was so great that our prismatic compass would not set closer than about 15 degrees, but the long compass needle of the dip-circle, though of course sluggish, continued to give excellent results.

Under these conditions it is obvious that the magnetic needle is quite useless for steering purposes. The sun compass proved itself a more than efficient substitute. On a snowfield there is usually a total absence of landmarks of any kind, so the direction of wind, sastrugi, or perhaps a low cloud is found with the sun-compass, frequently checked, and the course kept accordingly. On camping we would generally carefully note the direction in which the sledge was left, in case the next day proved overcast. Thus we would march in the morning by the wind's direction till the sun, gleaming through the clouds for a few moments, enabled us to use the compass again.

Sastrugi, only six inches high, seen on the 26th, showed the effects of wind-erosion exquisitely. In an individual case the windward end of a sastruga might be completely undercut for six or nine inches, leaving a hard crust, sometimes only one-eighth of an inch in thickness and a couple of inches wide. This would sag downwards under its own weight in a fine curve till the tip rested on the snow beneath. It is marvellous how such a delicate structure can withstand the heavy wind.

November 27 proved a very hard day. The wind kept up sixty miles per hour all the time, so that, after taking four hours to do four and three-quarter miles, we were all thoroughly exhausted. It was not a great run, but the century was hoisted—one hundred and three-quarter miles by sledge-meter; altitude two thousand nine hundred feet. There was a mild celebration that night over a square of butter-scotch and half an ounce of chocolate, besides the regular hoosh and cocoa.

Next day the light was very bad and the wind fifty miles per hour. Observations were therefore made inside the tent. Webb, Hurley and the instrument occupied all available space, while I spent three hours digging a shaft eight feet deep in the snow, taking temperatures every foot. It appeared that the mean annual temperature of the snow was approximately -16 degrees F.

The dip was 88 degrees 54'; certainly rather too large a rise from 88 degrees 20' of twenty miles back. The declination had actually changed about 80 degrees in the last ten miles. This one-hundred-mile station was badly disturbed. From the evidence, it is possible that a subsidiary "pole" or area of almost vertical dip may exist close by this spot to the west or south-west.

Going straight up wind into a "blow" which varied from forty to fifty miles per hour, we were able to make eight miles after the previous day's rest. At lunch a hole was dug five feet square and two feet deep. It served three purposes. First, it gave a good shelter for a longitude observation; secondly, with the mast, yard and floor-cloth we converted it into a shelter snug enough to house the primus and to lunch comfortably; and thirdly, a mound was left as a back-mark which was picked up on the return journey.

By experience we found that a warm lunch and a rest enabled one to "peg" along a good deal farther than would otherwise be possible.

The "scenery" in the afternoon became if possible more desolate—very few new sastrugi, the surface appearing generally old and pitted. In some places it was rotten and blown away, disclosing coarse granulated substrata. At the top of one ridge the snow merged into neve split into small crevasses, nine inches wide and four or five yards apart. The camp was pitched, here, at 11 P.M. The latitude was 68 degrees 32' S., and we saw the midnight sun for the first time that summer, about one-quarter of its rim remaining above the horizon.

A full hurricane came up and kept between fifty and sixty miles per hour all day on the 30th. Before moving off, Webb found that the magnetic needle had "waltzed" back 60 degrees since the one-hundred-mile camp, now pointing 80 degrees east of south. Still, to allow the needle to makeup its mind, we steered into the wind at 2 P.M., losing the neve and meeting very rough country. By 6 P.M., with four miles to our credit, we were nearly played out. It was being discussed whether we should go on when the discovery was made that the theodolite legs were missing; probably having slipped out in one of the numerous capsizes of the sledge.

The solemn rites of "shut-eye" determined that Webb was to stay and make camp while Hurley and I retraced our steps. It was no easy matter to follow the trail, for on hard snow the sledge runners leave no mark, and we had to watch for the holes of the crampon-spikes. About two and a half miles back, the legs were found, and there only remained a hard "plug" against the wind to camp and hoosh.

While we were lying half-toggled into the sleeping-bags, writing our diaries, Hurley spent some time alternately imprecating the wind and invoking it for a calm next day. As he said, once behind a break-wind one could safely defy it, but on the march one is much more humble.

Whether it was in honour of Queen Alexandra's birthday, or whether Hurley's pious efforts of the evening before had taken effect, December 1 turned out a good day. By noon, the wind had dropped sufficiently for us to hoist the Jack and Commonwealth Ensign for the occasion.

After four miles of battling, there came into sight a distinct ridge, ten miles to the west and south—quite the most definitely rising ground observed since leaving the coast. In one place was a patch of immense crevasses, easily visible to the naked eye; in another, due south, were black shadows, and towards these the course was pointed.

At a point more than one hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea, a skua gull paid an afternoon call, alighting a few yards from the track. I immediately commenced to stalk it with a fishing-line, this time all ready and baited with pemmican. However, it was quite contemptuous, flying off to the south-south-east as far as we could follow it. Was it taking a short cut to the Ross Sea?

December 2 saw us through "Dead-Beat Gully" to a rise, in sight of the shadows towards which we had been steering. Two miles away they appeared like the edge of the moon seen through a large telescope. The shadows were due to large mounds of snow on the south side of a steep escarpment. Three main prominences were cross-connected with regular lines of hillocks, giving the impression of a subdivided town-site. The low evening sun threw everything up in the most wonderful relief.

On the morning of the 3rd we were in a valley running west-north-west and east-south-east. The southern side rose steeply and from it projected three large mounds, about two hundred feet from the bottom of the valley, into which they fell just like tailings-heaps from a mine. They were christened "The Nodules."

Going due south uphill over neve we found ourselves in a regular network of crevasses. They were about ten feet wide and well bridged. Most noticeable were "hedges" of ice up to six feet in height on either side of the crevasses which ran southward. It was now nearly calm and in every crack and chink in the snow-bridges beautiful fern-like ice-crystals were seen. These must have been just forming, as a very light puff of wind was seen to destroy many of them.

We spent three hours exploring the locality. On nearing the top of the ridge, roped together, we found that the crevasses were becoming much wider, while the "hedges" were disappearing. The centre "nodule" was found to be immediately north or to the leeward of the intersection of two crevasses, each about forty feet wide. The bridge of one crevasse had dropped some thirty feet for a length of eighty yards. Doubtless, an eddy from this hole accounts for the deposit of snow and, by accretions, for the erection of the nodule. Webb went down at the end of the alpine rope and found the bridge below quite solid.

For about half a mile the summit of the slope was practically level, three hundred feet above the bed of the valley. The surface was still of neve, intersected by canals forty, sixty and eighty feet wide, in which the snow-bridge was generally four or five feet from the brink.

On the south-west horizon, perhaps twenty miles away, was a salient crest streaked by three dark vertical bars; evidently another crevassed area.

Returning to the sledge, we toggled-on and worked it up over the top of the ridge, much regretting that time would not allow us to examine the other two large "nodules." Hurley was in the lead, lengthening his line by thirty feet of alpine rope, but even then all three of us and the sledge were often on the lid of a crevasse. Luckily, the lids were fairly sound, and none of us went in beyond the waist. Finally, the trail emerged on to ordinary sastrugi once more, where a halt was made for lunch. We were all glad to have seen the place, but I think none of us has any wish to see another like it.

That night, after following the magnetic needle towards the south-east, we were fairly on the plateau at one hundred and forty miles, with an altitude of four thousand four hundred feet. The dip, however, had steadily decreased, standing now at 88 degrees 30'. There was some consolation in the hope that a big, sudden rise was stored up for us somewhere along the way ahead.

December 4 and 5 were fine days, giving only twenty-two miles, as we met with a rough surface; a large quantity of very hard, razor-backed sastrugi, generally about two feet high, like groined vaulting inverted, on a small scale. Sledge and sledge-meter both had a very rough passage. The sledge, for instance, balances itself on the top of a sastruga for a moment, with an ominous bend in the runners, crashes down the slope and jams its bow into the next one, from which it has to be lifted clear.

During this run the needle again misbehaved itself, changing its direction some 85 degrees in ten miles, but by the night of the 5th we were getting past the disturbed locality and the dip had increased considerably.

For the first time on the trip the wind veered round to the south-east. Snow had fallen overnight (December 5) and had drifted in long ramps diagonally across the sastrugi. In two and a half hours we covered two and a quarter miles, blindly blundering in an uncertain light among crests and troughs and through piles of soft, new snow. Then we stopped; Webb filling in the afternoon with a full set of dip observations.

That night the break-wind played its one possible trick. Waking on the 8th, we found that the heavy snowfall, with only a moderate wind, had drifted us up. Of course Hurley and I, who slept on the 'outsides,' had known it most of the night. Before we could extricate ourselves from the bags Webb had to turn out from the middle to dig away the drift which was weighing down the walls of the tent on top of us.

It was hopeless weather for travelling. In the afternoon a snow cave was dug, seven feet deep and enlarged to seven feet square at the bottom. The whole was covered with mast, yard and sail. It was very snug from the outward aspect, but we soon found that there were two objections to the "Sarcophagus," as it was named. There was very little light except a ghastly blue half-tone filtering through the snow, and the place was not over warm, surrounded by walls at a much lower temperature than that of the surface.

Webb commenced a declination "quick-run," consisting of half-hourly observations of the direction in which the compass was pointing. In ordinary latitudes, during the day, the compass needle moves over a few minutes of arc, but here, being so close to the Magnetic Pole, its movement is greatly magnified, the range being about 5 degrees on this occasion. Webb carried on readings till midnight, and at 4 A.M., December 9, I turned out, being relieved at 8 A.M. by Hurley, who carried on until the twenty-four hours were completed. This observation should be especially valuable when it is compared with continuous magnetic records obtained at the same time at Winter Quarters and by the Scott expedition at McMurdo Sound.

It was not till 1.30 P.M. on December 10 that the sixty-mile wind had subsided sufficiently for us to get away. Every yard of our quota of seven miles was hard going. A fine example of a typical old sastruga was passed on the way. In order to secure a photograph of it, Hurley had to waste eighteen films before he could persuade one to pull into place correctly. The film-packs had been carefully kept in an airtight tin, but the cold was too much for them. The tags which should pull each film round from the back to the front of the pack usually tore away with a small piece of film. In fact, out of one hundred and twenty films only forty-five exposures were made.

On the 11th a good deal of "piecrust" cut down the day's march to eight and a half miles. Sledge runners are usually supported by this surface, but one's feet break through in a most annoying and tiring manner. The drift eased off for a few hours and we managed to dry some of our gear. At the Sarcophagus, things which had all been wet enough before became saturated with drift which turned to ice. Felt mitts are perhaps the worst in this respect, and it is no exaggeration to say that you could easily brain a man with one after it had been worn in drift for a couple of days.

That night I decided that one more day must see us at our depot. Allowing three days' grace for contingencies, there were thirty-one days for us to attain our farthest southerly point and back to the Hut.

On the 12th we planned to reach a spot for the depot, two hundred miles out, and by 11.30 P.M. came on a fine site at one hundred and ninety-nine and three-quarter miles; altitude four thousand eight hundred and fifty feet, latitude 69 degrees 83.1' south; longitude 140 degrees 20' east. Everything possible was left behind, the sledge-decking being even cut away, until only three light bamboo slats remained. A pile, including ten days' food and one gallon of kerosene, was placed on a small mound to prevent it being drifted over. A few yards distant rose a solid nine-foot cairn surmounted by a black canvas-and-wire flag, six feet higher, well stayed with steel wire.

I took on food for seventeen days, three days more than I intended to be out, partly so that we could keep on longer if we found we could make very fast time, and also as a safeguard against thick weather when returning to the depot.

Late in the evening we set off against a stiff breeze. The sledge ran lightly for three and a half miles, and we camped. The depot showed up well in the north-west as a bright golden spot in the low midnight sun.

Next day the piecrust was so bad that, despite the lessened load, we only covered twelve miles. The surface was smoothly polished, and we either crashed through it from four inches to a foot or else slipped and came down heavily on knees, elbow, or head. New finnesko were largely responsible for such an accident.

At 11 P.M. a remarkable ramp, five chains long, was passed. On its windward side was a tangled cluster of large sastrugi. They made one imagine that the wind, infuriated at finding a block of snow impeding its progress, had run amok with a giant gouge, endeavouring to pare it down. Every now and then, the gouge, missing its aim, had taken great lateral scoops from the surface, leaving trenches two and three feet deep.

In bags that night we had a talk (not the first by any means) over our prospects. Up to the one hundred-and-seventy-four-mile camp, four hundred miles seemed dimly possible, but now we saw we would be lucky to reach three hundred miles. Moreover, the dip at this spot was 89 degrees 11', practically what it had been ever since one hundred and fifty miles. Sixty-five miles for nothing! How far for the other forty-nine minutes which were needed for a vertical dip and the South Magnetic Pole? This problem was insoluble, so each toggled himself into his bag in a rather depressed state of mind.

December 16 was a glorious day; only a fifteen-mile wind, and for ten miles an improved surface. There was no drift, consequently opportunity was taken to turn the sleeping bags inside out. They needed it, too. The upper parts were not so bad as they had been propped open occasionally, but the lower halves were coated with solid ice. For the first time for weeks we did not wear burberrys, as the weather was so warm. Fourteen miles was the total work, the previous day's being twelve.

All three of us were having trouble with snow-blindness; the "zinc and cocaine" tabloids being in great demand.

Latitude 70 degrees south was passed on the 17th and we were another fourteen miles to the good. The dip was on the increase 89 degrees 25' and the declination swung to 40 degrees east of the magnetic meridian. At two hundred and fifty-six miles the altitude was five thousand five hundred feet.

The temperature was getting lower; the minimum being -21 degrees F. on the night of the 17th, rising to a maximum of 3 degrees F. on the following day.

There was dead calm and a regular heat wave on December 19. As the sun rose higher and higher, the tent became absolutely oppressive. The rime coating the walls inside thawed and water actually trickled into our finnesko. Usually we awoke to find them frozen hard, just as we had shaped them on the previous night, but on this particular morning they were pathetically limp and wet. The temperature inside the tent was 66 degrees F., heated, of course, by the sun's rays which raised our black bulb thermometer to 105 degrees F. We were not used to this sort of thing and struggled out hurriedly for a breath of fresh air.

Once into harness, we began to feel the effects of exertion. By degrees we got rid of our clothing, but unfortunately soon came to bedrock in that respect, as the underclothing was sewn on and immovable. At lunch time, with the thermometer at -2 degrees F. in the shade, we reluctantly dressed knowing how soon we would cool off. About 9 P.M. clouds moved over rapidly from the south-east and the landscape faded into the blank, shadowless nothing of an overcast day. The camp was pitched at two hundred and eighty-three miles amidst a jumble of ramps and sastrugi. The dip had seen fit to rise to 89 degrees 35'.

In the morning the wind was doing thirty miles per hour, which certainly seemed to be the normal thing. It fell to a nice sailing breeze, but, at the time, we were not very appreciative of anything as the course was uphill. Again, it was to be the last day's run, so we were "all out" when the halt came after a good fifteen miles—the longest day's march on the outward journey. Nevertheless, Webb unpacked the theodolite after hoosh and took an altitude of the sun at midnight.

On December 21 the load on the sledge was stripped down to tent, dip-circle, theodolite, cooker and a little food. For two and a half miles we went south-east over rising ground until the sledge-meter showed three hundred and one miles.

While Hurley and I pitched the tent, Webb built a breakwind for his instrument fifty yards away. Then followed a long set of magnetic observations. About 5 P.M. the magnetic work was interrupted; the theodolite replacing the dip-circle on the legs, while I took a longitude shot. I was seeing double, being slightly snow-blind, and had some difficulty in choosing the correct combination from the assortment of suns and cross-wires visible in the telescope. Setting the vertical and horizontal wires simultaneously on the sun was beyond me; Webb taking the observations for the true meridian, which also checked my longitude shot.

Magnetic work under these conditions is an extremely uncomfortable operation. Even a light wind will eddy round the break-wind, and it is wind which makes low temperatures formidable. Nearly all the work has to be done with bare fingers or thin instrument-gloves, and the time taken is far greater than in temperate climates, owing to the fingers constantly "going" and because of the necessity of continually freeing the instrument from the condensed moisture of the breath. Considering that the temperature was -12 degrees F. when he had finished his four hours' work, it may be imagined that Webb was ready for his hot tea. The dip proved to be 89 degrees 43.5', that is, sixteen and a half minutes from the vertical. The altitude was just over five thousand nine hundred feet, in latitude 70 degrees 36.5' south and longitude 148 degrees 10' east.

After lunch the Union Jack and the Commonwealth Ensign were hoisted and three cheers given for the King—willing but rather lonesome away out there! We searched the horizon with glasses but could see nothing save snow, undulating in endless sastrugi. To the south-east the horizon was limited by our old enemy, "the next ridge," some two miles away. We wondered what could be beyond, although we knew it was only the same featureless repetition, since one hundred and seventy-five miles on the same course would bring us to the spot where David, Mawson and Mackay had stood in 1909.

After Hurley had taken a photograph of the camp, the tent was struck and the sledge repacked. At last the sail was rigged, we gave a final glance back and turned on the homeward trail.

My diary of that night sums up: "We have now been exactly six weeks on the tramp and somehow feel rather sad at turning back, even though it has not been quite a Sunday school picnic all along. It is a great disappointment not to see a dip of 90°, but the time is too short with this 'climate.' It was higher than we expected to get, after the unsatisfactory dips obtained near the two-hundred-mile depot. The rate of increase since that spot has been fairly uniform and indicates that 90 degrees might be reached in another fifty to sixty miles, if the same rate held, and that means at least another week. It's no good thinking about it for 'orders are orders.' We'll have our work cut out to get back as it is. Twenty-five days till we are overdue. Certainly we have twenty-three days' food, eight days' with us, ten days' at two hundred miles, and five days' at sixty-seven miles, so with luck we should not go hungry, but Webb wants to get five more full sets of dips if possible on the way back, and this means two and a half days."

That night the minimum thermometer registered its lowest at -25 degrees F. It was December 21 and Midsummer Day, so we concluded that the spot would be a very chilly one in the winter.

At this juncture we were very short of finnesko. The new ones we had worn since the two-hundred-mile camp had moulted badly and were now almost "bald." The stitching wears through as soon as the hair comes off and frequent mending is necessary.

We rose earlier than usual on the 22nd, so as to get more advantage from the wind, which each evening had always tended to die down somewhat. With forty-two square feet of sail, the twenty-mile wind was too much for us, the sledge capsizing on the smallest pretext. Instead of hanging the yard from the top of the mast, we placed it across the load, reversing the sail and hooking the clews over the top of the mast. Three or four pieces of lampwick at intervals served as reefing-points by which the area of the sail could be quickly cut down by bunching the upper part as much as was necessary.

During the day we frequently saw our tracks in patches of snow left during a previous snowfall, but they were much eroded, although only three days old. After sledging in Adelie Land it is hard to realize that on certain parts of the Ross Barrier tracks a year old may remain visible.

After passing the two-hundred-and-eighty-three-mile mound, the sledge-meter became very sickly. Spoke after spoke had parted and we saw that nothing we could do would make it last very much longer. As we intended in one place to make a cross-country run of seventy miles, so as to cut off the detour to the "Nodules," the meter was carried on the sledge. We had now the mounds to check distances.

On December 23 we were lucky enough to catch sight of the two-hundred-and-sixty-nine-mile mound and later the one at two hundred and sixty-one miles, though there was a good deal of drift. The day's run was twenty and a half miles.

A thing which helped us unexpectedly was that, now with the wind behind, we found it unnecessary to wear the stiff, heavy, frozen, burberry trousers. Thick pyjama trousers took their place in all except the worst weather.

At our old two-hundred-and-forty-nine-mile camp, Webb took a complete set of magnetic observations and another time-shot for watch-rate. It was late when these were over, so we did only two and a half miles more, halting for Christmas Eve, well content with a run of fourteen miles in addition to a set of observations.

On Christmas Day the country was very rough, making sailing difficult. Still, eighteen and a half miles were left behind. The wind was practically along the sastrugi and the course was diagonal to both. As the sledge strikes each sastruga, it skids northwards along it to the discomfort of the wheelers and the disgust of the leader.

For Christmas dinner that night we had to content ourselves with revising the menu for the meal which was to celebrate the two-hundred-mile depot. But now it was all pretty well mapped out, having been matured in its finer details for several days on the march. Hors d'oeuvre, soup, meat, pudding, sweets and wine were all designed, and estimates were out. Would we pick up the depot soon enough to justify an "auspicious occasion"?

Next day the wind was due south at thirty miles per hour. Dodging big ramps and overturning on sastrugi, at the same time dragging well upwind of the course to save leeway, twelve miles went by without the two-hundred-and-fifteen-mile mound coming into sight. Finally, a search with the glasses through falling snow revealed it a good two miles back. As we particularly wanted some photos of the ramps at this camp, we made across to it and had lunch there, Hurley exposing the last of the films.

At two hundred and nine miles "Lot's Wife" appeared—a tall, thin mound which Hurley had erected during a lunch-camp on the way out.

On the 27th, with a thirty-five-mile wind and a good deal of drift, we did not see the two-hundred-and-three-mile mound until we almost ran into it. By three o'clock the great event occurred—the depot was found! We determined to hold the Christmas feast. After a cup of tea and a bit of biscuit, the rest of the lunch ration was put aside.

Webb set up his instrument in the lee of the big mound and commenced a set of observations; I sorted out gear from the depot and rearranged the sledge load; Hurley was busy in the tent concocting all kinds of dishes. As the tableware was limited to three mugs and the Nansen cooker, we had to come in to deal with each course the moment it was ready. Aiming at a really high-class meal, Hurley had started by actually cleaning out the cooker.

The absence of reindeer-hair and other oddments made everything taste quite strange, though the basis was still the same old ration with a few remaining "perks." After the "raisin gliders," soup and a good stiff hoosh, Webb finished his observations while I recorded for him. It is wonderful what sledging does for the appetite. For the first week of the journey, the unaccustomed ration was too much for us; but now when Hurley announced "Pudding!" we were all still ravenous. It was a fine example of ye goode olde English plum-pudding, made from biscuit grated with the Bonsa-saw, fat picked out of the pemmican, raisins and glaxo-and-sugar, all boiled in an old food-bag.

This pudding was so filling that we could hardly struggle through a savoury, "Angels on runners," and cocoa. There was a general recovery when the "wine" was produced, made from stewed raisins and primus alcohol; and "The King" was toasted with much gusto. At the first sip, to say the least, we were disappointed. The rule of "no heel taps" nearly settled us, and quite a long interval and cigars, saved up for the occasion by Webb, were necessary before we could get courage enough to drink to the Other Sledging Parties and Our Supporting Party.