338 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 



Our case is growing desperate. Evans and his man-haulers 

 tried to pull a load this afternoon. They managed to move a 

 sledge with four people on it, pulling in ski. Pulling on foot 

 they sank to the knees. The snow all about us is terribly 

 deep. We tried Nobby and he plunged to his belly in it. 

 Wilson thinks the ponies finished,^ ^ but Oates thinks they will 

 get another march in spite of the surface, ;'/ it conies to-morrow. 

 If it should not, we must kill the ponies to-morrow and get on 

 as best we can w^ith the men on ski and the dogs. But one won- 

 ders what the dogs can do on such a surface. I much fear they 

 also will prove inadequate. Oh! for fine weather, if only to 

 the Glacier. The temperature remains + 33°, and everything is 

 disgustingly wet. 



1 1 P.M. — The wind has gone to the north, the sky is really 

 breaking at last, the sun showing less sparingly, and the land 

 appearing out of the haze. The temperature has fallen to 

 -|- 26°, and the water nuisance is already bating. With so fair 

 a promise of improvement it would be too cruel to have to face 

 bad weather to-morrow. There is good cheer in the camp to- 

 night in the prospect of action. The poor ponies look wistfully 

 for the food of which so very little remains, yet they are not 

 hungry, as recent savings have resulted from food left in their 

 nosebags. They look wonderfully fit, all things considered. 

 Everything looks more hopeful to-night, but nothing can recall 

 four lost days. 



Saturday, December 9. — Camp 31. I turned out two or 

 three times in the night to find the weather slowly improving; 

 at 5.30 we all got up, and at 8 got away with the ponies — a 

 most painful day. The tremendous snowfall of the late storm 

 had made the surface intolerably soft, and after the first hour 

 there was no glide. We pressed on the poor half-rationed ani- 

 mals, but could get none to lead for more than a few minutes; 

 following, the animals would do fairly well. It looked as we 

 could never make headway; the man-haulers were pressed into 

 the service to aid matters. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard went 

 ahead with one lo-foot sledge, — thus most painfully we made 

 about a mile. The situation was saved by P.O. Evans, who 

 put the last pair of snowshoes on Snatcher. From this he went 

 on without much pressing, the other ponies followed, and one 

 by one were worn out in the second place. We went on all day 



