ich is truly
astonishing--on 'trek' he is just as sound and hard as ever and has
an inexhaustible store of anecdote.

'Crean is perfectly happy, ready to do anything and go anywhere, the
harder the work, the better. Evans and Crean are great friends. Lashly
is his old self in every respect, hard working to the limit, quiet,
abstemious, and determined. You see altogether I have a good set of
people with me, and it will go hard if we don't achieve something.

'The study of individual character is a pleasant pastime in such
a mixed community of thoroughly nice people, and the study of
relationships and interactions is fascinating--men of the most
diverse upbringings and experience are really pals with one another,
and the subjects which would be delicate ground of discussion between
acquaintances are just those which are most freely used for jests. For
instance the Soldier is never tired of girding at Australia, its
people and institutions, and the Australians retaliate by attacking
the hide-bound prejudices of the British army. I have never seen a
temper lost in these discussions. So as I sit here I am very satisfied
with these things. I think that it would have been difficult to
better the organisation of the party--every man has his work and is
especially adapted for it; there is no gap and no overlap--it is all
that I desired, and the same might be said of the men selected to do
the work.'

It promised to be very fine to-day, but the wind has already sprung
up and clouds are gathering again. There was a very beautiful curved
'banner' cloud south of Erebus this morning, perhaps a warning of
what is to come.

Another accident! At one o'clock 'Snatcher,' one of the three ponies
laying the depot, arrived with single trace and dangling sledge in a
welter of sweat. Forty minutes after P.O. Evans, his driver, came in
almost as hot; simultaneously Wilson arrived with Nobby and a tale of
events not complete. He said that after the loads were removed Bowers
had been holding the three ponies, who appeared to be quiet; suddenly
one had tossed his head and all three had stampeded--Snatcher making
for home, Nobby for the Western Mountains, Victor, with Bowers still
hanging to him, in an indefinite direction. Running for two miles,
he eventually rounded up Nobby west of Tent Island and brought him
in._20_ Half an hour after Wilson's return, Bowers came in with Victor
distressed, bleeding at the nose, from which a considerable fr