46 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Dec. 



very blistered state. We have especial trouble with our nostrils 

 and lips, which are always bare of skin ; all our fingers, too, 

 are in a very chapped, cracked condition. We have to be very 

 economical with our eyes also, after frequent attacks of snow- 

 bhndness; all three of us to-day had one eye completely 

 shaded, and could see only by peering with the other through 

 a goggle. But all our ailments together are as nothing beside 

 our hunger, which gets steadily worse day by day.' 



''December 24. — Wilson examined us again this morning. I 

 asked him quietly the result, and he said, " A little more." It 

 is trying, but we both agree that it is not time yet to say 

 "Turn." But we have one fact to comfort us to-night — we 

 have passed on to a much harder surface, and though it still 

 holds a layer of an inch or two of feathery snow, beneath that 

 it is comparatively firm, and we are encamped on quite a hard 

 spot; the sastrugi dSQ all from the S.S.E. parallel to the land. 

 If the dogs have not improved, they have not grown much 

 worse during the past day or two ; their relative strength alters 

 a good deal, as the following tale will show : " Stripes " and 

 "Gus" pull next one another; a week ago one had great 

 difficulty in preventing "Stripes" from leaping across and 

 seizing " Gus's " food. He was very cunning about it; he 

 waited till one's back was turned, and then was over and back 

 in a moment. Time has its revenges: now "Gus" is the 

 stronger, and to-night he leapt across and seized " Stripes's " 

 choicest morsel. At other times they are not bad friends these 

 two ; loser and winner seem to regard this sort of thing as part 

 of the game. After all, it is but "the good old rule, the 

 simple plan," but of course we right matters when we detect 

 such thefts. 



' To-night is Christmas Eve. We have been thinking and 

 talking about the folk at home, and also much about our 

 plans for to-morrow.' 



'December 25, Christmas Day. — . . . For a week we have 

 looked forward to this day with childish delight, and, long 

 before that, we decided that it would be a crime to go to bed 

 hungry on Christmas night ; so the week went in planning a 



