sun, just a
bit of it. I saw the upper limb from out on the sea ice, and Sunny Jim at
the same time got a sight of it from his observatory hill. How glad we
were. We drank champagne to honour the sun, people made poetry concerning
it, some of which--Birdie Bowers's lines--found their way eventually into
the "South Polar Times." The animals went half dotty over it, frisking,
kicking, and breaking away even from their leaders; they seemed to
understand so well, these little ponies, that the worst part of the
winter was gone--poor ponies! Long before the sun again disappeared below
the northern horizon the ponies were no more.

There is not so very much in the statement that the sun had now returned,
but the fact, of little enough significance to those without the
Antarctic Circle, left something in our minds, an impression never to be
effaced--the snowed-up hut surrounded by a great expanse of white, the
rather surprised look an the dogs' faces, the sniffing at one's knees and
the wagging of tails as one approached to pat their heads, the twitching
of the ponies' ears and nostrils, and the rather impish attitude the
fitter animals adopted, the occasional kick out, probably meant quite
playfully, and above all the grins on the faces of the Russian grooms.
Yes, we were all smiling when the sun came back, even the horizon smiled
kindly at us from the north. The Barne Glacier's snout lost its
inexorable hard gray look and took on softer hues, and Erebus's slopes
were now bathed in every shade of orange, pink, and purple. To begin
with, we had very little of this lovely colouring, but soon the
gladdening tints stretched out over morning and afternoon. We were never
idle in the hut, but the sun's return seemed to make fingers lighter as
well as hearts.

CHAPTER X

SPRING DEPOT JOURNEY

However well equipped an expedition may be, there are always special
arrangements and adaptions necessary to further the labour-saving
contrivances and extend the radius of action.

For this reason the short autumn journeys had been undertaken to test the
equipment as well as to give us sledging experience and carry weights of
stores out on to the Barrier. And now that Wilson had added yet more
knowledge to what we were up against, we set Evans and his seamen
companions on to the most strenuous preparations for going South with
sledges. Thus, while one lot of men were skilfully fitting sledges with
convenient straps to secure the