l will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal
and quite unselfish. Add to this a wider knowledge of persons and
things than is at first guessable, a quiet vein of humour and really
consummate tact, and you have some idea of his values. I think he is
the most popular member of the party, and that is saying much.

'Bowers is all and more than I ever expected of him. He is a positive
treasure, absolutely trustworthy and prodigiously energetic. He
is about the hardest man amongst us, and that is saying a good
deal--nothing seems to hurt his tough little body and certainly
no hardship daunts his spirit. I shall have a hundred little
tales to tell you of his indefatigable zeal, his unselfishness,
and his inextinguishable good humour. He surprises always, for his
intelligence is of quite a high order and his memory for details most
exceptional. You can imagine him, as he is, an indispensable assistant
to me in every detail concerning the management and organisation of
our sledging work and a delightful companion on the march.

'One of the greatest successes is Wright. He is very thorough and
absolutely ready for anything. Like Bowers he has taken to sledging
like a duck to water, and although he hasn't had such severe testing,
I believe he would stand it pretty nearly as well. Nothing ever seems
to worry him, and I can't imagine he ever complained of anything in
his life.

'I don't think I will give such long descriptions of the others,
though most of them deserve equally high praise. Taken all round
they are a perfectly excellent lot.'

The Soldier is very popular with all--a delightfully humorous cheery
old pessimist--striving with the ponies night and day and bringing
woeful accounts of their small ailments into the hut.

X.... has a positive passion for helping others--it is extraordinary
what pains he will take to do a kind thing unobtrusively.

'One sees the need of having one's heart in one's work. Results can
only be got down here by a man desperately eager to get them.

'Y.... works hard at his own work, taking extraordinary pains with it,
but with an astonishing lack of initiative he makes not the smallest
effort to grasp the work of others; it is a sort of character which
plants itself in a corner and will stop there.

'The men are equally fine. Edgar Evans has proved a useful member
of our party; he looks after our sledges and sledge equipment with
a care of management and a fertility of resource wh