ly outwards, we
shall shortly escape it. It is perhaps premature [Feb. 19] to be anxious
about covering distance. In all other respects things are improving. We
have our sleeping-bags spread on the sledge and they are drying, but,
above all, we have our full measure of food again. To-night we had a sort
of stew fry of pemmican and horseflesh, and voted it the best hoosh we
had ever had on a sledge journey. The absence of poor Evans is a help to
the commissariat, but if he had been here in a fit state we might have
got along faster. I wonder what is in store for us, with some little
alarm at the lateness of the season." And on February 20, when they made
7 miles, "At present our sledge and ski leave deeply ploughed tracks
which can be seen winding for miles behind. It is distressing, but as
usual trials are forgotten when we camp, and good food is our lot. Pray
God we get better travelling as we are not so fit as we were, and the
season is advancing apace." And on February 21, "We never won a march of
81/2 miles with greater difficulty, but we can't go on like this."[342]

A breeze suddenly came away from S.S.E., force 4 to 6 at 11 A.M. on
February 22, and they hoisted the sail on the sledge they had just picked
up. They immediately lost the tracks they were following, and failed to
find the cairns and camp remains which they should have picked up if they
had been on the right course, which was difficult here owing to the thick
weather we had on the outward march. Bowers was sure they were too near
the land and they steered out, but still failed to pick up the line on
which their depots and their lives depended. Scott was convinced they
were outside, not inside the line. The next morning Bowers took a round
of angles, and they came to the conclusion, on slender evidence, that
they were still too near the land. They had an unhappy march still off
the tracks, "but just as we decided to lunch, Bowers' wonderful sharp
eyes detected an old double lunch cairn, the theodolite telescope
confirmed it, and our spirits rose accordingly."[343] Then Wilson had
another "bad attack of snow-glare: could hardly keep a chink of eye open
in goggles to see the course. Fat pony hoosh."[344] This day they reached
the Lower Barrier Depot.

[Illustration: SLEDGING IN A HIGH WIND--E. A. Wilson, del.]

They were in evil case, but they would have been all right, these men, if
the cold had not come down upon them, a bolt quite literally from the