gaged on this work, I overheard the following
conversation being shouted in the Supporting Party's tent:

FIRST VOICE. I'm hungry. Who will go out and get the food-bag?

SLEEPY VOICE. The food-weights ** are in the cooker.

FIRST VOICE. No they're not.

SLEEPY VOICE. Saw them there yesterday, must be somewhere in the tent.

FIRST VOICE. No they're not... I ate them last night.

** Until amounts were known by experience, rations were weighed by a
small balance whose various weights were small calico bags filled with
chocolate.

The exercise, a good hoosh and above all the clear sky made us take a
less morbid view of the fact that we were six days out from the Hut and
only nineteen and a half miles away.

Early on the 16th we could hear above the roar of the wind the drift
still hissing against the tent, but it had diminished by nine o'clock
breakfast.

By common consent it was agreed that our loads were too heavy for the
conditions under which we were working. I accordingly decided to drop
one hundred-pound bag. We had already saved nearly one week's food for
three men and had not yet worked up our full sledging appetites. The
bag was raised to the top of a six-foot snow mound, a thermograph being
placed alongside. As we now seemed to be on plateau snow, I thought it
wise to leave behind my heavy boots and Swiss crampons.

By 4 P.M. the wind had decreased to a light breeze. Work was very slow
on a steeper up grade, and at six o'clock clouds came up quickly
from the south-east and snow began to fall, so we camped at 7.30 P.M.
thoroughly tired out. At twenty-four and a half miles the altitude was
three thousand two hundred feet.

The snow was a false alarm. It ceased at 9 P.M. and the wind subsided to
a dead calm!!

Good headway was being made against a strong breeze next day, when
it was noticed that two gallons of kerosene were missing off the
supporters' sledge. While Murphy and Laseron went back two miles
to recover them, Webb secured a magnetic declination and I took sun
observations for time and azimuth.

We were off early on the 18th and for the first time were able to
appreciate the "scenery." Glorious sunshine overhead and all around
brilliant snow, dappled by livid shadows; very different from the
smooth, soft, white mantle usually attributed to the surface of
Antarctica by those in the homeland. Here and there, indeed, were
smooth patches which we called bowling-greens, but hard and slippe