aking, so we
thought, a total of forty-three miles in the twenty-two and a quarter
hours since leaving the depot. Observations for position next day proved
that in its dying effort it exaggerated the truth; the total run being
41.6 miles.

We were now well ahead of schedule time, there being four and a half
days' surplus food; above what was probably required to reach the
sixty-seven-and-a-half-mile depot. It was decided to hold three days of
this and to use one and a half days food as a bonus during the coming
week, as long as we were ahead of our necessary distance. The sledging
ration is quite enough to live on, but for the whole of the journey
we had felt that we could have done more distance on a slightly larger
ration. This may be partly explained by our comparatively high altitude.

Next morning the sledge-meter was cut away and stuck in the snow. It
looked very forlorn sitting askew in its forks, with a pair of worn-out
finnesko hanging over it.

After twelve miles with a favourable wind, Webb took more observations;
Hurley and I recording by turns. There were several small holes in the
tent which needed mending, and I experimented with adhesive plaster from
the medical kit with great success. Heated over a fusee and pressed hard
down between the bottoms of mugs, held outside and inside, the patches
adhered well and made a permanent job.

Early on December 31, 1912, snow was falling. The light gave Hurley an
attack of snow-blindness and a miserable day. Crampons were worn to give
some security to the foothold on the uneven track. The position, after
a trudge of fifteen miles, was estimated at five miles east of the
one-hundred-and-twenty-three-mile mound.

On New Year's Day, 1913, the wind was fresher and the surface improved.
Estimation placed us to the north of one hundred and thirteen miles, but
we were not hopeful in the light falling snow of seeing a mound. Soon,
however, the snow ceased, and Webb made out a hillock two miles ahead.
It was identified as the one at one hundred and nine miles.

It had been my turn to be snowblind. I was so bad that the only thing to
do was to camp or ride on the sledge. The trail changed here to straight
downwind, so Webb and Hurley undertook the job, hauling the sledge
with me as a passenger for three and a half miles to the
one-hundred-and-five-mile mound. It must have been a trying finish to a
run of twenty miles.

In spite of the spell, which was a sleepless one,