isions now and
again to the stores already depoted there in readiness for the southern
sledge journey, on which we built our hopes for ultimate triumph.

Eight of us went out for a week's sledging on March 16, but the
temperatures were now becoming too low to be pleasant and touching 40
degrees or so below zero. What tried us more than anything else was thick
weather and the fearfully bad light on days when no landmarks were
visible to guide us to the depot. Our sleeping-bags also were frozen and
uncomfortable, thick rime collecting on the insides of our tents which
every puff of wind would shake down in a shower of ice. When sitting
round on our rolled-up sleeping-bags at meal times we could not help our
heads and shoulders brushing off patches of this frost rime, which soon
accumulated in the fur of the sleeping-bags and made life at night a
clammy misery. The surfaces were very heavy, and dragging even light
sledges when returning from the depot proved a laborious business.

This autumn time gave a series of gales and strong winds with scarcely
ever more than a few hours of calm or gentle breeze, sandwiched in
between. Sometimes we used ski, but there are occasions when ski are
quite useless, owing to snow binding in great clogs underneath them. The
Norwegians use different kinds of paraffin wax and compositions of tar
and other ingredients for overcoming this difficulty. Gran had brought
from Christiania the best of these compositions, nevertheless there were
days when whatever we put on we had difficulty with ski and had to cast
them aside. There were people who preferred foot-slogging to ski at any
time, and there were certainly days when teams on foot would literally
dance round men pulling on ski. In the light of experience, however, the
expert ski-runner has enormous advantage over the "foot-slogger," however
good an athlete.

What strikes me here is the dreadful similarity in weather condition,
wind, temperature, etc., surface and visibility to that which culminated
in the great disaster of our expedition and resulted in poor Scott's
death exactly a year later. Here is a day taken haphazard from my diary:

"From Corner Camp to Hut Point:

"March 18, 1911.--Called the hands at 6.15 and after a fine warming
breakfast started off on ski. The light was simply awful and the
surface very bad, but we did six miles, then lunched. After lunch
carried on with a strong wind blowing, but after very heav