348 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 



hard after yesterday's snowfall. In the afternoon we continued 

 on ski till after two hours we struck a peculiarly diflicult surface 

 — old hard sastrugi underneath, with pits and high soft sastrugi 

 due to very recent snowfalls. The sledges were so often brought 

 up by this that we decided to take to our feet, and thus made 

 better progress, but for the time with very excessive labour. 

 The crust, brittle, held for a pace or two, then let one down 

 with a bump some 8 or lO inches. Now and again one's leg 

 went down a crack in the hard ice underneath. We drew up a 

 slope on this surface and discovered a long icefall extending 

 right across our track, I presume the same pressure which caused 

 Shackleton to turn towards the Cloudmaker. We made in for 

 that mountain and soon got on hard, crevassed, undulating ice 

 with quantities of soft snow in the hollows. The disturbance 

 seems to increase, but the snow to diminish as we approach the 

 rocks. We shall look for a moraine and try and follow it up 

 to-morrow. The hills on our left have horizontally stratified 

 rock alternating with snow. The exposed rock is very black; 

 the brownish colour of the Cloudmaker has black horizontal 

 streaks across it. The sides of the glacier north of the Cloud- 

 maker have a curious cutting, the upper part less steep than the 

 lower, suggestive of different conditions of glacier-flow in suc- 

 ceeding ages. 



We must push on all we can, for we are now 6 days behind 

 Shackleton, all due to that wretched storm. So far, since we 

 got amongst the disturbances we have not seen such alarming 

 crevasses as I had expected; certainly dogs could have come up 

 as far as this. At present one gets terrible hot and perspiring 

 on the march, and quickly cold when halted, but the sun makes up 

 for all evils. It is very difficult to know what to do about the 

 ski; their weight is considerable and yet under certain circum- 

 stances they are extraordinarily useful. Everyone is very satis- 

 fied with our summit ration. The party which has been man- 

 hauling for so long say they are far less hungry than they used 

 to be. It is good to think that the majority will keep up this 

 good feeding all through. 



Sunday, December 17. — Camp 39. Soon after starting we 

 found ourselves in rather a mess; bad pressure ahead and long 

 waves between us and the land. Blue ice showed on the crests 

 of the waves; very soft snow lay in the hollows. We had to 



