btable puller, has just eaten himself loose for the third time
since hoosh. This time I had to go down to the pony walls to get him.

We have had onions for the first time to-night in our hoosh--they are
most excellent. Also we have been having some Nestle's condensed milk
from One Ton Depot--which I do not want to see again, the depot I mean.
Peary must know what he is about, taking milk as a ration: the sweetness
is a great thing, but it would be heavy: we have been having it with
temperature down to -14 deg., when it was quite manageable, but I don't know
what it would be like in colder temperatures.

_November 19. Early morning._ We have done our 13 miles to-day and have
got on to a much better surface. By what we and others have seen before,
it seems that last winter must have generally been an exceptional one.
There have been many parties out here: we have never before seen this
wind-swept surface, on which it is often too slippery to walk
comfortably. I do not know what temperatures the Discovery had in April,
but it was much colder last April than it was the year before. And then
nothing had been experienced down here to compare with the winds last
winter.

There was a high wind and a lot of drift yesterday during the day, and
now it is blowing and drifting as usual. During the last nine days there
has only been one, the day we found the tent, when it has not been
drifting during all or part of the day. It is all right for travelling
north, but we should be having very uncomfortable marches if we were
marching the other way.

_November 20. Early morning._ To-day we have seemed to be walking in
circles through space. Wright, by dint of having a man behind to give him
a fixed point to steer upon, has steered us quite straight, and we have
picked up every cairn. The pony party camped for lunch by two cairns, but
they never knew the two cairns were there until a piece of paper blew
away and had to be fetched: and it was caught against one of the cairns.
They left a flag there to guide us, and though we saw and brought along
the flag, we never saw the cairns. The temperature is -22.5 deg., and it is
now blowing a full blizzard. All this snow has hitherto been lying on the
ground and making a very soft surface, for though the wind has always
been blowing it has never been very strong. This snow and wind, which
have now persisted for nine out of the last ten days, make most
dispiriting marches; for there is nothing