fairly wallowed in. If it was only ourselves to consider I should not
mind a bit, but to see our best ponies being hit like this at the start
is most distressing. A single march like that of last night must shorten
their usefulness by days, and here we are a fortnight out, and barely
one-third of the distance to the glacier covered, with every pony showing
signs of wear. Victor looks a lean and lanky beast compared with his
condition two weeks ago."[198]

But the ponies began to go better; and it was about this time that Jehu
was styled the Barrier Wonder, and Chinaman the Thunderbolt. "Our four
ponies have suffered most," writes Bowers. "I don't agree with Titus that
it is best to march them right through without a lunch camp. They were
undoubtedly pretty tired, and worst of all did not go their feeds
properly. It was a fine warm morning for them (Nov. 13); +15 deg., our
warmest temperature hitherto. In the afternoon it came on to snow in
large flakes like one would get at home. I have never seen such snow down
here before; it makes the surface very bad for the sledges. The ponies'
manes and rugs were covered in little knots of ice."

The next march (November 13-14) was rather better, though the going was
very deep and heavy, and all the ponies were showing signs of wear and
tear. This was followed by a delightfully warm day, and all the animals
were standing drowsily in the sunshine. We could see the land far away
behind us, the first sight of land we had had for many days. On November
15 we reached One Ton Depot, having travelled a hundred and thirty miles
from Hut Point.

The two sledges left standing were still upright, and the tattered
remains of a flag flapped over the main cairn. In a salt tin lashed to
the bamboo flag-pole was a note from Lieutenant Evans to say that he had
gone on with the motor party five days before, and would continue
man-hauling to 80 deg. 30' S. and await us there. "He has done something over
30 miles in 21/2 days--exceedingly good going."[199] We dug out the cairn,
which we found just as we had left it except that there was a big tongue
of drift, level with the top of the cairn to leeward, and running about
150 yards to N.E., showing that the prevailing wind here is S.W. Nine
months before we had sprinkled some oats on the surface of the snow
hoping to get a measurement of the accretion of snow during the winter.
Unfortunately we were unable to find the oats again, but other evidence
w