ng the clews over the top of the mast. Three
or four pieces of lampwick at intervals served as reefing-points by
which the area of the sail could be quickly cut down by bunching the
upper part as much as was necessary.

During the day we frequently saw our tracks in patches of snow left
during a previous snowfall, but they were much eroded, although only
three days old. After sledging in Adelie Land it is hard to realize
that on certain parts of the Ross Barrier tracks a year old may remain
visible.

After passing the two-hundred-and-eighty-three-mile mound, the
sledge-meter became very sickly. Spoke after spoke had parted and we
saw that nothing we could do would make it last very much longer. As we
intended in one place to make a cross-country run of seventy miles, so
as to cut off the detour to the "Nodules," the meter was carried on the
sledge. We had now the mounds to check distances.

On December 23 we were lucky enough to catch sight of the
two-hundred-and-sixty-nine-mile mound and later the one at two hundred
and sixty-one miles, though there was a good deal of drift. The day's
run was twenty and a half miles.

A thing which helped us unexpectedly was that, now with the wind behind,
we found it unnecessary to wear the stiff, heavy, frozen, burberry
trousers. Thick pyjama trousers took their place in all except the worst
weather.

At our old two-hundred-and-forty-nine-mile camp, Webb took a complete
set of magnetic observations and another time-shot for watch-rate. It
was late when these were over, so we did only two and a half miles more,
halting for Christmas Eve, well content with a run of fourteen miles in
addition to a set of observations.

On Christmas Day the country was very rough, making sailing difficult.
Still, eighteen and a half miles were left behind. The wind was
practically along the sastrugi and the course was diagonal to both. As
the sledge strikes each sastruga, it skids northwards along it to the
discomfort of the wheelers and the disgust of the leader.

For Christmas dinner that night we had to content ourselves
with revising the menu for the meal which was to celebrate the
two-hundred-mile depot. But now it was all pretty well mapped out,
having been matured in its finer details for several days on the march.
Hors d'oeuvre, soup, meat, pudding, sweets and wine were all designed,
and estimates were out. Would we pick up the depot soon enough to
justify an "auspicious occasion"?

Ne