try and devise some method by which the ponies could be
driven from behind, and by which the connection between pony and sledge
could be loosed if the pony fell into a crevasse, but I confess that
there seemed little chance of this happening. From all we saw of the
glacier I am convinced that there is no reasonable chance of getting
ponies up it, and that dogs could only be driven down it if the way up
was most carefully surveyed and kept on the return. I am sure that in
this kind of uncertainty the mental strain on the leader of a party is
less than that on his men. The leader knows quite well what he thinks
worth while risking or not: in this case Scott probably was always of the
opinion that it would not be worth while taking ponies on to the glacier.
The pony leaders, however, only knew that the possibility was ahead of
them. I can remember now the relief with which we heard that it was not
intended that Wilson should take Nobby, the fittest of our ponies,
farther than the Gateway.

Up to now Christopher had lived up to his reputation, as the following
extracts from Bowers' diary will show: "Three times we downed him, and he
got up and threw us about, with all four of us hanging on like grim
death. He nearly had me under him once; he seems fearfully strong, but it
is a pity he wastes so much good energy.... Christopher, as usual, was
strapped on three legs and then got down on his knees. He gets more
cunning each time, and if he does not succeed in biting or kicking one of
us before long it won't be his fault. He finds the soft snow does not
hurt his knees like the sea-ice, and so plunges about on them _ad lib_.
One's finnesko are so slippery that it is difficult to exert full
strength on him, and to-day he bowled Oates over and got away altogether.
Fortunately the lashing on his fourth leg held fast, and we were able to
secure him when he rejoined the other animals. Finally he lay down, and
thought he had defeated us, but we had the sledge connected up by that
time, and as he got up we rushed him forward before he had time to kick
over the traces.... Dimitri came and gave us a hand with Chris. Three of
us hung on to him while the other two connected up the sledge. We had a
struggle for over twenty minutes, and he managed to tread on me, but no
damage done.... Got Chris in by a dodge. Titus did away with his back
strap, and nearly had him away unaided before he realized that the hated
sledge was fast to him. Unfortun