edge with four others sitting upon it. Nobby was led out, but sank to
his belly. As for the drifts I saw Oates standing behind one, and only
his head appeared, and this was all loose snow.

"We are all sitting round now after some tea--it is much better than
getting into the bags. I can hardly think that the ponies can pull on,
but Titus thinks they can pull to-morrow; all the food is finished, and
what they have had to-day was only what they would not eat out of their
last feed yesterday. It is a terrible end--driven to death on no more
food, to be then cut up, poor devils. I have swopped the Little Minister
with Silas Wright for Dante's Inferno!"[219] The steady patter of the
falling snow upon the tents was depressing as we turned in, but the
temperature was below freezing.

The next morning (Saturday, December 9) we turned out to a cloudy snowy
day at 5.30 A.M. By 8.30 we had hauled the sledges some way out of the
camp and started to lead out the ponies. "The horses could hardly move,
sank up to their bellies, and finally lay down. They had to be driven,
lashed on. It was a grim business."[220]

My impressions of that day are of groping our way, for Bowers and I were
pulling a light sledge ahead to make the track, through a vague white
wall. First a confused crowd of men behind us gathered round the leading
pony sledge, pushing it forward, the poor beast barely able to struggle
out of the holes it made as it plunged forward. The others were induced
to follow, and after a start had been made the regular man-hauling party
went back to fetch their load. There was not one man there who would
willingly have caused pain to a living thing. But what else was to be
done--we could not leave our pony depot in that bog. Hour after hour we
plugged on: and we dare not halt for lunch, we knew we could never start
again. After crossing many waves huge pressure ridges suddenly showed
themselves all round, and we got on to a steep rise with the coastal
chasm on our right hand appearing as a great dip full of enormous
pressure. Scott was naturally worried about crevasses, and though we knew
there was a way through, the finding of it in the gloom was most
difficult. For two hours we zig-zagged about, getting forward it is true,
but much bewildered, and once at any rate almost bogged. Scott joined us,
and we took off our ski so as to find the crevasses, and if possible a
hard way through. Every step we sank about fifteen inches, and oft