332 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 



condition and will provide five feeds for the dogs. (Temp. 

 -f- 17-) We must kill now as the forage is so short, but we 

 have reached the 83rd parallel and are practically safe to 

 get through. To-night the sky is breaking and conditions gen- 

 erally more promising it is dreadfully dismal work marching 

 through the blank wall of white, and we should have very great 

 difficulty if we had not a party to go ahead and show the course. 

 The dogs are doing splendidly and will take a heavier load from 

 to-morrow. We kill another pony to-morrow night if we get 

 our march off, and shall then have nearly three days' food for 

 the other five. In fact everything looks well if the weather will 

 only give us a chance to see our way to the Glacier. Wild, in 

 his Diary of Shackleton's Journey, remarks on December 15, that 

 it is the first day for a month that he could not record splendid 

 weather. With us a fine day has been the exception so far. 

 However, we have not lost a march yet. It was so warm when 

 we camped that the snow melted as it fell, and everything got 

 sopping wet. Oates came into my tent yesterday, exchanging 

 with Cherry-Garrard. 



The lists now: Self, Wilson, Oates, and Keohane. Bowers, 

 P.O. Evans, Cherry and Crean. 



Man-haulers: E. R. Evans, Atkinson, Wright, and Lashly. 

 We have all taken to horse meat and are so well fed that hunger 

 isn't thought of. 



Sunday, December 3. Camp 29. Our luck in weather is 

 preposterous. I roused the hands at 2.30 A.M., intending to get 

 away at 5. It was thick and snowy, yet we could have got on; 

 but at breakfast the wind increased, and by 4.30 it was blowing 

 a full gale from the south. The pony wall blew down, huge 

 drifts collected, and the sledges were quickly buried. It was 

 the strongest wind I have known here in summer. At 1 1 it be- 

 gan to take off. At 12.30 we got up and had lunch and got 

 ready to start. The land appeared, the clouds broke, and by 

 1.30 we were in bright sunshine. We were off at 2 p.m., the land 

 showing all round, and, but for some cloud to the S.E., every- 

 thing promising. At 2.15 I saw the south-easterly cloud spread- 

 ing up; it blotted out the land 30 miles away at 2.30 and was 

 on us before 3. The sun went out, snow fell thickly, and march- 

 ing conditions became horrible. The wind increased from the 

 S.E., changed to S.W., where it hung for a time, and suddenly 



