. The wind
shifted in light airs and a little hope revived. Alas! as I write
the sun has disappeared and snow is again falling.

Our case is growing desperate. Evans and his man-haulers tried to pull
a load this afternoon. They managed to move a sledge with four people
on it, pulling in ski. Pulling on foot they sank to the knees. The snow
all about us is terribly deep. We tried Nobby and he plunged to his
belly in it. Wilson thinks the ponies finished,_21_ but Oates thinks
they will get another march in spite of the surface, _if it comes
to-morrow_. If it should not, we must kill the ponies to-morrow and get
on as best we can with the men on ski and the dogs. But one wonders
what the dogs can do on such a surface. I much fear they also will
prove inadequate. Oh! for fine weather, if only to the Glacier. The
temperature remains 33 deg., and everything is disgustingly wet.

11 P.M.--The wind has gone to the north, the sky is really breaking at
last, the sun showing less sparingly, and the land appearing out of
the haze. The temperature has fallen to 26 deg., and the water nuisance
is already bating. With so fair a promise of improvement it would be
too cruel to have to face bad weather to-morrow. There is good cheer
in the camp to-night in the prospect of action. The poor ponies look
wistfully for the food of which so very little remains, yet they are
not hungry, as recent savings have resulted from food left in their
nosebags. They look wonderfully fit, all things considered. Everything
looks more hopeful to-night, but nothing can recall four lost days.

_Saturday, December_ 9.--Camp 31. I turned out two or three times in
the night to find the weather slowly improving; at 5.30 we all got up,
and at 8 got away with the ponies--a most painful day. The tremendous
snowfall of the late storm had made the surface intolerably soft,
and after the first hour there was no glide. We pressed on the poor
half-rationed animals, but could get none to lead for more than a few
minutes; following, the animals would do fairly well. It looked as
we could never make headway; the man-haulers were pressed into the
service to aid matters. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard went ahead with
one 10-foot sledge,--thus most painfully we made about a mile. The
situation was saved by P.O. Evans, who put the last pair of snowshoes
on Snatcher. From this he went on without much pressing, the other
ponies followed, and one by one were worn out in the second pl