begun to make itself felt for the first time. I
for one had my first experience of it that afternoon. During the halt
at lunch I put on yellow goggles in place of the smoked ones I had been
wearing, and in a quarter of an hour the change of colour had 'settled'
my eyes for the time being.

The afternoon was very hot. The thermometer stood at 10 degrees F. at
4 P.M., but the still air made it almost insupportable. By the time
the load was hauled up out of the basin, we were streaming with
perspiration.

Before halting, we sighted a dark, distant ridge, thirty miles away,
and the course was corrected by its bearing. Our extravagant hopes of
finding a permanently calm region had been dwindling for the last few
miles, as a hard bottom, a few inches under the surface, had become
evident. They were finally dispelled by a south-west wind springing up
during the night.

As every one was beginning to feel the hard work after another
oppressive afternoon on the 20th, we decided to have an easy march next
day and to build our first depot. Of course we had hoped to have been
farther out before sending back the supporting party, but the weather
had settled the question.

On the 21st, taking things as easily as a thirty-five mile wind would
permit, we pulled on, up and down small undulations till 4 P.M. when we
encountered a small rise, with the next ridge a considerable distance
ahead. The depot was to be built here.

Webb at once proceeded to take full magnetic declination, time and
azimuth observations, Laseron recording for him. Murphy put in a
miserable hour over the primus melting snow. He was rather snow-blind
and his eyes must have contributed a good deal of water to the pot. The
water was poured into food-bags filled with snow, which were buried,
encircled by wire slings, in holes. Here they froze, making excellent
holdfasts for the depot flag. Depot flags had been exercising our
ingenuity for months before the start, ordinary forms being destroyed by
the wind in a few hours. Webb had finally built the perfect flag of
the wind-vane type: a V of pieces of blackened Venesta board with light
struts at the back and a piece of aeroplane tubing at the apex which
slipped over the bamboo pole. The pole, of two bamboos, stood sixteen
feet from the ground and was provided with two sets of flexible steel
stays. Close by, Hurley and Hunter had built a snow mound ten feet in
diameter and ten feet in height, finished off with a cap