ually
mounting. Our height yesterday morning by hypsometer was 8000 feet. That
is our last hypsometer record, as I had the misfortune to break the
thermometer. The hypsometer was one of my chief delights, and nobody
could have been more disgusted than myself at its breaking. However, we
have the aneroid to check the height. We are going gradually up and up.
As one would expect, a considerable amount of lassitude was felt over
breakfast after our feed last night. The last thing on earth I wanted to
do was to ship the harness round my poor tummy when we started. As usual
a stiff breeze from the south and a temperature of -7 deg. blew in our faces.
Strange to say, however, we don't get frost-bitten. I suppose it is the
open-air life.

I could not tell if I had a frost-bite on my face now, as it is all
scales, so are my lips and nose. A considerable amount of red hair is
endeavouring to cover up matters. We crossed several ridges, and after
the effects of over-feeding had worn off did a pretty good march of
thirteen miles.

[No more Christmas Days, so no more big hooshes.[248]]

December 27. There is something the matter with our sledge or our team,
as we have an awful slog to keep up with the others. I asked Dr. Bill and
he said their sledge ran very easily. Ours is nothing but a desperate
drag with constant rallies to keep up. We certainly manage to do so, but
I am sure we cannot keep this up for long. We are all pretty well done up
to-night after doing 13.3 miles.

Our salvation is on the summits of the ridges, where hard neve and
sastrugi obtain, and we skip over this slippery stuff and make up lost
ground easily. In soft snow the other team draw steadily ahead, and it is
fairly heart-breaking to know you are putting your life out hour after
hour while they go along with little apparent effort.

December 28. The last few days have been absolutely cloudless, with
unbroken sunshine for twenty-four hours. It sounds very nice, but the
temperature never comes above zero and what Shackleton called "the
pitiless increasing wind" of the great plateau continues to blow at all
times from the south. It never ceases, and all night it whistles round
the tents, all day it blows in our faces. Sometimes it is S.S.E., or S.E.
to S., and sometimes even S. to W., but always southerly, chiefly
accompanied by low drift which at night forms quite a deposit round the
sledges. We expected this wind, so we must not growl at getting it. It