238 DEPOT JOURNEYS 



same time for all he was worth. How hard and un- 

 feeling one gets under such conditions; how one's 

 whole nature may be changed! I am naturally fond 

 of all animals, and try to avoid hurting them. There is 

 none of the "sportsman's" instinct in me; it would never 

 occur to me to kill an animal rats and flies excepted 

 unless it was to support life. I think I can say that in 

 normal circumstances I loved my dogs, and the feeling- 

 was undoubtedly mutual. But the circumstances we 

 were now in were not normal or was it, perhaps, myself 

 who was not normal? I have often thought since that 

 such was really the case. The daily hard work and the 

 object I would not give up had made me brutal, for 

 brutal I was when I forced those five skeletons to haul 

 that excessive load. I feel it yet when I think of Thor 

 -a big, fine, smooth-haired dog uttering his plaintive 

 howls on the march, a thing one never hears a dog do 

 while working. I did not understand what it meant 

 would not understand, perhaps. On he had to go on 

 till he dropped. When we cut him open we found that 

 his whole chest was one large abscess. 



The altitude at noon gave us 81 54' 30", and we 

 therefore went the other six miles to the south, and 

 pitched our camp at 3.30 p.m. in 82 S. We had 

 latterly had a constant impression that the Barrier was 

 rising, and in the opinion of all of us we ought now to 

 have been at a height of about 1,500 feet and a good 

 way up the slope leading to the Pole. Personally I 



