orizon with glasses but could see nothing save
snow, undulating in endless sastrugi. To the south-east the horizon
was limited by our old enemy, "the next ridge," some two miles away.
We wondered what could be beyond, although we knew it was only the same
featureless repetition, since one hundred and seventy-five miles on the
same course would bring us to the spot where David, Mawson and Mackay
had stood in 1909.

After Hurley had taken a photograph of the camp, the tent was struck and
the sledge repacked. At last the sail was rigged, we gave a final glance
back and turned on the homeward trail.

My diary of that night sums up: "We have now been exactly six weeks on
the tramp and somehow feel rather sad at turning back, even though
it has not been quite a Sunday school picnic all along. It is a great
disappointment not to see a dip of 90 deg., but the time is too short
with this 'climate.' It was higher than we expected to get, after the
unsatisfactory dips obtained near the two-hundred-mile depot. The rate
of increase since that spot has been fairly uniform and indicates that
90 degrees might be reached in another fifty to sixty miles, if the same
rate held, and that means at least another week. It's no good thinking
about it for 'orders are orders.' We'll have our work cut out to get
back as it is. Twenty-five days till we are overdue. Certainly we have
twenty-three days' food, eight days' with us, ten days' at two hundred
miles, and five days' at sixty-seven miles, so with luck we should not
go hungry, but Webb wants to get five more full sets of dips if possible
on the way back, and this means two and a half days."

That night the minimum thermometer registered its lowest at -25 degrees
F. It was December 21 and Midsummer Day, so we concluded that the spot
would be a very chilly one in the winter.

At this juncture we were very short of finnesko. The new ones we had
worn since the two-hundred-mile camp had moulted badly and were now
almost "bald." The stitching wears through as soon as the hair comes off
and frequent mending is necessary.

We rose earlier than usual on the 22nd, so as to get more advantage from
the wind, which each evening had always tended to die down somewhat.
With forty-two square feet of sail, the twenty-mile wind was too much
for us, the sledge capsizing on the smallest pretext. Instead of
hanging the yard from the top of the mast, we placed it across the load,
reversing the sail and hooki