204 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Dec. 



peaks to the S.E., but cloud hangs so persistently about them 

 that I cannot recognise anything. I imagine we are too far 

 to the south, but I am not at all certain. I rather thought 

 that when we saw the land it would bring immediate relief to 

 all anxiety, but somehow it hasn't. I know that we must be 

 approaching the edge of the plateau, but now the question is, 

 where ? There must be innumerable glaciers intersecting the 

 mountains, and one cannot but see that it will be luck if we hit 

 off our own at the first shot, and that we cannot afford to make 

 a mistake. I hope and trust we shall soon recognise land- 

 marks ; but the sky is most unpromising, and it looks very much 

 as though we were about to have a return of thick weather.' 



On the nth we caught only the same fleeting glimpses 

 of the land as on the previous day, but we marched stolidly 

 on, hoping for clearer weather, and on December 12 I wrote : 



' It has been overcast all day. Now and again this morning 

 I caught glimpses of land, which seems much closer, but I am 

 still left in horrible uncertainty as to our whereabouts, as I 

 could not recognise a single point. The light became very bad 

 before lunch ; everything except the sun was shut out, and 

 that was only seen through broken clouds. Lately we have 

 been pulling for ten hours a day ; it is rather too much when 

 the strain on the harness is so great, and we are becoming 

 gaunt shadows of our former selves. My companions' cheeks 

 are quite sunken and hollow, and with their stubbly untrimmed 

 beards and numerous frost-bite remains they have the wildest 

 appearance ; yet we are all fit, and there has not been a sign of 

 sickness beyond the return of those well-remembered pangs of 

 hunger which are now becoming exceedingly acute. We have 

 at last finished our tobacco ; for a long time Evans and I have 

 had to be content with a half-pipe a day, but now even that 

 small comfort has gone ; it was our long stay in the blizzard 

 camp that has reduced us to this strait. There is one blessing ; 

 the next day or two will show what is going to happen one way 

 or the other. If we walk far enough in this direction we must 

 come to the edge of the plateau somewhere, and anything 

 seems better than this heavy and anxious collar work.' 



