136 THE RETURN TO FRAMHEIM 



sun behind us, which meant a good deal to our eyes. 

 Going against the sun on a snow surface like this tells fear- 

 fully on the eyes, even if one has good snow-goggles ; but 

 with the sun at one's back it is only play. Another great 

 advantage — which we did not reap till later — was that it 

 gave us the warmest part of the twenty-four hours in 

 the tent, during which time we had an opportunity of 

 drying wet clothes, and so on. This last advantage was, 

 however, a doubtful one, as we shall see in due course. 



It was a great comfort to turn our backs to the south. 

 The wind, which had nearly always been in this quarter, 

 had often been very painful to our cracked faces; now 

 we should always have it at our backs, and it would 

 help us on our way, besides giving our faces time to 

 heal. Another thing we were longing for was to come 

 down to the Barrier again, so that we could breathe 

 freely. Up here we were seldom able to draw a good 

 long breath ; if we only had to say " Yes," we had to 

 do it in two instalments. The asthmatic condition in 

 which we found ourselves during our six wrecks' stay on 

 the plateau was anything but pleasant. We had fixed 

 fifteen geographical miles (seventeen and three-eighths 

 statute miles) as a suitable day's march on the homeward 

 journey. We had, of course, many advantages now as 

 compared with the southward journey, which, would 

 have enabled us to do longer marches than this ; but we 

 were afraid of overworking the dogs, and possibly using 

 them up before we had gone very far, if we attempted 



