GRATITUDE FOR SKI 89 



Every day we had occasion to bless our ski. We 

 often used to ask each other where we should now have 

 been without these excellent appliances. The usual 

 answer was: Most probably at the bottom of some 

 crevasse. When we first read the different accounts 

 of the aspect and nature of the Barrier, it was clear to 

 all of us, who were born and bred with ski on our feet, 

 that these must be regarded as indispensable. This 

 view was confirmed and strengthened every day, and 

 I am not giving too much credit to our excellent ski 

 when I say that they not only played a very important 

 part, but possibly the most important of all, on our 

 journey to the South Pole. Many a time we traversed 

 stretches of surface so cleft and disturbed that it would 

 have been an impossibility to get over them on foot. 

 I need scarcely insist on the advantages of ski in deep, 

 loose snow. 



After advancing for two hours, we decided to return. 



From the raised ridge on which we were then standing, 



the surface ahead of us looked more promising than 



ever; but we had so often been deceived on the glacier 



that we had now become definitely sceptical. How 



often, for instance, had we thought that beyond this or 



that undulation our trials would be at an end, and that 



the way to the south would lie open and free; only to 



reach the place and find that the ground behind the 



ridge was, if possible, worse than what we had already 



been sti-uggling with. But this time we seemed some- 

 VOL. II. 32 



