Never do I expect to meet anything more tantalising than the plateau on which our hopes were set. By December 18 I thought that we were almost up, and yet we had to go on and on, apparently unable to get rid of the crevasses.

By this time we were fully conscious that food was to be the key to our success or failure to reach the Pole, and we began to save food in order to spin it out, a saving which made us almost ravenous with hunger. Each day we saved two biscuits per man, and also some pemmican and sugar, and we tried to satisfy our hunger by eating pony maize, which we soaked in water to make it less hard. If only dreams prevented one from hunger we should have been well off, for each night we all dreamed of foods.

A week before Christmas we had food for thirty-five days, and were about three hundred geographical miles from the Pole, with the same distance back to the depot we had just made, so that at the best we knew that we must march on short rations if we were to reach our goal.

Each succeeding day we hoped to get rid of the crevasses, but although we were fortunate in having been favoured with splendid weather, we had to camp each night sustained by the hope that on the morrow we should really be upon the plateau, and by the thought that Christmas Day—with its splendid dinner—was approaching.

By December 21—Midsummer Day—the weather had changed, and we encountered 28° of frost and such a strong blizzard wind that both our fingers and our ears were frost-bitten, while our beards were masses of ice all day long. From the conditions I could easily imagine that we were on a spring sledging journey, for such a chilly wind was blowing that it found its way through the nearly worn-out walls of our tent.

Relay work still continued to hamper us, and on the 22nd we had to work with the alpine rope all day, dragging 400 lb. at a time up steep slopes and across ridges, and roping ourselves together when we went back for the second sledge, because the ground was so treacherous that often we were only saved by the rope from falling into fathomless pits.

Wild described this sensation of walking over a surface of half-ice and half-snow as like walking over the glass roof of a station, and so accustomed did we become to crevasses that our usual question when any of us fell into one was, "Have you found it?"

I suppose that we became callous as regards immediate dangers, though I confess that we were always glad to meet crevasses with their coats off, that is, not hidden by their perilous snow-coverings. Longing as we were really to stretch out our legs for the Pole, it can easily be imagined how irksome this constant succession of crevasses was. And to add to our discomforts, the temperature had become so low that the pony-maize refused any longer to swell in the water, the result being that it swelled after we had eaten it.

Christmas Eve, however, brought a change in our fortunes, and was much the brightest day we had enjoyed since entering our southern gateway. We covered over eleven miles, and at night were 9095 ft. above sea-level, and the way before us was still rising.

So far we had seen no sign of the very hard surface that Captain Scott speaks of in connection with his journey on the Northern Plateau, but we were determined not to give up hopes of better surfaces, for without them we knew that we should not reach the Pole. As Christmas approached our thoughts naturally turned to home and the festivities and joys of the time. How greatly we longed to hear "the hansoms slurring through the London mud" it is impossible to say. But instead of the sights and sounds of London we were lying in a little tent, isolated high on the roof of the end of the world, far indeed from the trodden paths of men.

Nevertheless our thoughts flew across the wastes of snow and ice, and across the oceans to those for whom we were striving, and who, we knew, were thinking of us.

By noon on Christmas Day we had by hard hauling covered over five miles, and had reached a latitude of 85° 51′ south. Then I took a photograph of the camp with the Queen's flag flying and also our tent flags, my companions being in the picture, and in the evening we had a splendid dinner, the details of which I cannot refrain from giving.

First came "hoosh," consisting of pony ration boiled up with pemmican and some of our emergency Oxo and biscuit. Then in the cocoa-water I boiled our little plum pudding, which a friend of Wild's had given him. This, with a drop of medical brandy, was a luxury which the greatest glutton living might have envied. And afterwards came cocoa; and, lastly, cigars and a spoonful of liqueur sent us by a friend in Scotland.

We were really satisfied for once, and as we knew that we should not be in that happy state again for many a long day, we discussed the situation after dinner and decided still further to reduce our food.

On Christmas Day we were nearly 250 geographical miles from the Pole, and having one month's food but only three weeks' biscuit, we resolved to make each week's food last ten days, and to throw away everything except the most absolute necessities.

Already we were as regards clothes down to the limit, but at this time we decided also to dump a lot of spare gear—and risk it.

Pulling 150 lb. per man, we spent our Boxing Day among ridges and crevasses. Every time we reached the top of a ridge we said to ourselves, "Perhaps this is the last," but the last was long in coming. And in the meantime our maize was nearly finished, and our rations were bound to be shorter than ever. Considering that hard half-cooked maize gave us indigestion, it is, perhaps, curious that we were very sorry that there was so little of it left, but those who have suffered from both hunger and indigestion know too well which is the harder to endure.

On December 28 we reached 10,199 ft. above sea-level and a latitude of 86° 31', and bad headaches—which were, I think, a form of mountain sickness—began to attack us. The sensation was as though the nerves were being twisted up with a corkscrew and then pulled out. Our sledge was by this time badly strained, and on the dreadful bad surface of soft snow was very hard to move; and when it is remembered that physical labour of any kind is always trying at a great height, it is not to be wondered at that we were beginning to feel nearly spent.

If the rise would only have stopped we could have endured the cold, but the two together were terribly trying; and then, to add to our unhappiness, the last day but one of the old year brought with it such a blizzard from the south that we had to spend nearly the whole of it in our sleeping-bags.

There we lay while precious time and food were going, and tried to think how we could improve the situation, but all we could find to console us was the resolution that if we could get near enough to the Pole to rush for it, we would leave almost everything behind us and make the attempt. The last day of the year brought us eleven miles nearer to our goal, and although our heads were aching and the shortness of food was telling on us terribly, we were, in spite of everything, cheered by the thought that we were still getting south.