[204] A note to Cape Evans is as follows:--MY DEAR SIMPSON. This
goes with Day and Hooper now returning. We are making fair
progress and the ponies doing fairly well. I hope we shall
get through to the glacier without difficulty, but to make
sure I am carrying the dog-teams farther than I intended at
first--the teams may be late returning, unfit for further
work or non-existent....--R. SCOTT.

[205] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 474.

[206] Ibid. p. 475.

[207] Ibid. p. 476.

[208] Ibid. p. 476.

[209] Bowers.

[210] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 483.

[211] Bowers.

[212] Bowers.

[213] My own diary.

[214] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 486.

[215] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. pp. 486-489.

[216] Bowers.

[217] _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. i. p. 489.

[218] My own diary.

[219] My own diary.

[220] Ibid.

CHAPTER X

THE POLAR JOURNEY (_continued_)

The Southern Journey involves the most important object of the
Expedition.... One cannot affect to be blind to the situation:
the scientific public, as well as the more general public, will
gauge the result of the scientific work of the Expedition largely
in accordance with the success or failure of the main object.
With success all roads will be made easy, all work will receive
its proper consideration. With failure even the most brilliant
work may be neglected and forgotten, at least for a time.--SCOTT.

II. THE BEARDMORE GLACIER

The ponies had dragged twenty-four weekly units of food for four men to
some five miles from the bottom of the glacier, but we were late. For
some days we had been eating the Summit ration, that is the food which
should not have been touched until the Glacier Depot had been laid, and
we were still a day's run from the place where this was to be done: it
was of course the result of the blizzard which no one could have expected
in December, usually one of the two most settled months. Still more
serious was the deep snow which lay like down upon the surface, and into
which we sank commonly to our knees, our sledges digging themselves in
until the crosspieces were ploughing through the drift. Shackleton had
fine weather, and found blue ice in the bottom reaches of the glacier,
and Scott lamented what was unquestionably bad luck.

It was noon of