w on December 3, our former tracks, of
course, having been entirely obliterated. The bridged crevasses were now
entirely hidden and many weak lids were found.

At 9 A.M. Harrisson, Watson and I roped up to mark a course over a very
bad place, leaving Kennedy with the dogs. We had only gone about one
hundred yards when I got a very heavy jerk on the rope and, on looking
round, found that Watson had disappeared. He weighs two hundred pounds
in his clothes and the crevasse into which he had fallen was fifteen
feet wide. He had broken through on the far side and the rope, cutting
through the bridge, stopped in the middle so that he could not reach the
sides to help himself in any way. Kennedy brought another rope over and
threw it down to Watson and we were then able to haul him up, but it was
twenty minutes before he was out. He reappeared smiling, and, except for
a bruise on the shin and the loss of a glove, was no worse for the fall.

At 2.30 P.M. we were all dead-beat, camping with one mile one thousand
seven hundred yards on the meter. One-third of this distance was relay
work and, in several places, standing pulls with the alpine rope. The
course was a series of Z's, S's, and hairpin turns, the longest straight
stretch one hundred and fifty yards, and the whole knee-deep in soft
snow, the sledges sinking to the cross-bars.

The 4th was a repetition of the previous day--a terribly hard two and
a half miles. We all had "hangman's drops" into crevasses. One
snow-bridge, ten feet wide, fell in as the meter following the
twelve-foot sledge was going over behind it.

The 5th was a day of wind, scurrying snow and bad light. Harrisson
went out to feed the dogs in the morning and broke through the lid of a
crevasse, but fortunately caught the side and climbed out.

The diary again:

"Friday, December 6. Still bad light and a little snowfall, but we
were off at ten o'clock. I was leading and fell into at least a dozen
crevasses, but had to be hauled out of one only. At 1.30 P.M. we arrived
at the open lead we had crossed on the outward journey and found the
same place. There had been much movement since then and we had to make
a bridge, cutting away projections in some places and filling up the
sea-water channels with snow and ice. Then Harrisson crossed with the
aid of two bamboo poles, and hauled me over on a sledge. Harrisson and I
on one side and Kennedy and Watson on the other then hauled the sledges
backwards and fo