is was to the good,
for no motor-driven machine had travelled on the Barrier before. The
general design seemed to be right, all that was now wanted was
experience. As an experiment they were successful in the South, but Scott
never knew their true possibilities; for they were the direct ancestors
of the 'tanks' in France.

Night-marching had its advantages and disadvantages. The ponies were
pulling in the colder part of the day and resting in the warm, which was
good. Their coats dried well in the sun, and after a few days to get
accustomed to the new conditions, they slept and fed in comparative
comfort. On the other hand the pulling surface was undoubtedly better
when the sun was high and the temperature warmer. Taking one thing with
another there was no doubt that night-marching was better for ponies, but
we seldom if ever tried it man-hauling.

[Illustration: CAMP ON THE BARRIER--E. A. Wilson, del.]

Just now there was an amazing difference between day and night
conditions. At midnight one was making short work of everything, nursing
fingers after doing up harness with minus temperatures and nasty cold
winds: by supper time the next morning we were sitting on our sledges
writing up our diaries or meteorological logs, and even dabbling our bare
toes in the snow, but not for long! Shades of darkness! How different all
this was from what we had been through. My personal impression of this
early summer sledging on the Barrier was one of constant wonder at its
comfort. One had forgotten that a tent could be warm and a sleeping-bag
dry: so deep were the contrary impressions that only actual experience
was convincing. "It is a sweltering day, the air breathless, the glare
intense--one loses sight of the fact that the temperature is low [-22 deg.],
one's mind seeks comparison in hot sunlit streets and scorching
pavements, yet six hours ago my thumb was frost-bitten. All the
inconveniences of frozen footwear and damp clothes and sleeping-bags have
vanished entirely."[189]

We could not expect to get through this windy area of Corner Camp without
some bad weather. The wind-blown surface improved, the ponies took their
heavier loads with ease, but as we came to our next camp it was banking
up to the S.E. and the breeze freshened almost immediately. We built pony
walls hurriedly and by the time we had finished supper it was blowing
force 5 (A.M. November 6, Camp 4). There was a moderate gale with some
drift all day which in