202 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [April 



organised fashion, the men straining hard at a heart breaking 

 load, the dogs at each step flinching more determinedly from 

 the cutting wind and the light pricking drift which it carried 

 to the level of their noses ; the thermometer never rose above 

 -30°, and the third night it fell to —47°. The daylight 

 hours were now very short, and all too many were wasted in 

 the unavoidable delays of inexperienced camp work, and from 

 the want of facility in the details of our arrangements. After 

 three days' labour we were only nine miles from the ship, and 

 it was quite evident that under present conditions we could 

 not expect a better speed. On April 3 I decided to turn, and 

 ' caching ' our heavy loads we reached the ship that night, 

 and could then fully realise what an extraordinarily sheltered 

 position she occupied, for I find in my diary : ' The tempera- 

 ture on board has never fallen below —23°, so that it appears 

 we can count on about 20° better in our snug winter quarters 

 than occurs on the open barrier. But if one can get nearly 

 — 50° on the barrier before the sun has set, what is it going to 

 be like in mid-winter ? and what also in the early spring, when 

 our sledging begins again ? ' 



Our autumn sledging was at an end, and left me with 

 much food for thought. In one way or another each journey 

 had been a failure ; we had little or nothing to show for our 

 labours. The errors were patent ; food, clothing, everything 

 was wrong, the whole system was bad. It was clear that there 

 would have to be a thorough reorganisation before the spring, 

 and it was well to think that before us lay a long winter in 

 which this might be effected. 



I have described these early troubles in some detail, partly 

 because they show how much we learnt by our failures and 

 partly because it is necessary to realise that sledging is not 

 such an easy matter as might be imagined. 



That we were eventually able to make long and successful 

 sledge journeys is no doubt due to the mistakes which we 

 made and to the experience which we gained during the first 

 barren attempts of this autumn, and yet more to the fact that 

 we resolved to profit by them, and thoroughly took our lesson 



