rly difficult surface--old
hard sastrugi underneath, with pits and high soft sastrugi due to
very recent snowfalls. The sledges were so often brought up by this
that we decided to take to our feet, and thus made better progress,
but for the time with very excessive labour. The crust, brittle,
held for a pace or two, then let one down with a bump some 8 or 10
inches. Now and again one's leg went down a crack in the hard ice
underneath. We drew up a slope on this surface and discovered a long
icefall extending right across our track, I presume the same pressure
which caused Shackleton to turn towards the Cloudmaker. We made in
for that mountain and soon got on hard, crevassed, undulating ice
with quantities of soft snow in the hollows. The disturbance seems to
increase, but the snow to diminish as we approach the rocks. We shall
look for a moraine and try and follow it up to-morrow. The hills on
our left have horizontally stratified rock alternating with snow. The
exposed rock is very black; the brownish colour of the Cloudmaker has
black horizontal streaks across it. The sides of the glacier north
of the Cloudmaker have a curious cutting, the upper part less steep
than the lower, suggestive of different conditions of glacier-flow
in succeeding ages.

We must push on all we can, for we are now 6 days behind Shackleton,
all due to that wretched storm. So far, since we got amongst the
disturbances we have not seen such alarming crevasses as I had
expected; certainly dogs could have come up as far as this. At present
one gets terrible hot and perspiring on the march, and quickly cold
when halted, but the sun makes up for all evils. It is very difficult
to know what to do about the ski; their weight is considerable and yet
under certain circumstances they are extraordinarily useful. Everyone
is very satisfied with our summit ration. The party which has been
man-hauling for so long say they are far less hungry than they used
to be. It is good to think that the majority will keep up this good
feeding all through.

_Sunday, December_ 17.--Camp 39. Soon after starting we found ourselves
in rather a mess; bad pressure ahead and long waves between us and
the land. Blue ice showed on the crests of the waves; very soft snow
lay in the hollows. We had to cross the waves in places 30 feet from
crest to hollow, and we did it by sitting on the sledge and letting
her go. Thus we went down with a rush and our impetus carried us some
way