DOG-TEAMS AND MULES 233 



realised that this area was more crevassed than it had been pre- 

 viously. I had left it to Wright's judgment as to whether the 

 leaders of the mules were to be linked up by the Alpine rope in 

 going over these last six miles. He thought it fit to do this and 

 they proceeded in that order. The surface they encountered was 

 exceedingly deep and heavy, and only two of the mules struck 

 crevasses and these, luckily, without any mishap. The mules 

 were so tired when they had finished the six miles to Corner 

 Camp that Wright decided to remain there for half a day. 



On November i the two dog-teams, with Cherry-Garrard, 

 Demetri, and myself, started to follow the mules. The dogs' 

 loads, which had been made out to allow about 75 Ibs. per dog, 

 proved to be heavy from the start; the progress was exceedingly 

 slow and we completed fifteen miles for the first day. The next 

 day, again over a very bad surface, we completed another fifteen 

 miles and reached Corner Camp. There we had a very reassur- 

 ing note from Wright. He said that the mules were going well 

 together and, instead of having to be split up into fast and slow 

 mules, they broke camp and pitched camp, with one exception, 

 all together, for Khan Sahib, Nelson's mule, was peculiarly slow, 

 and in the temperature we were encountering on the march Nel- 

 son found it of the greatest difficulty to keep himself at all warm. 

 This mule would usually lose three-fourths of a mile on the 

 others while they were completing two miles. Nelson invented a 

 method of walking two steps forward and jumping one back, in 

 order to keep his circulation up to the mark. 



They proceeded, building cairns of snow at intervals of from 

 two to four miles in order that we might follow their tracks. 



I saw from the way that the dogs were going that we should 

 have great difficulty, with their present weights, in catching the 

 mules before they reached One Ton Depot. On Wright's satis- 

 factory report I decided to entrust everything to the mules and to 

 use the dogs as a means of lightening their heavy loads. The 

 mules' weights had increased from Corner Camp up to nearly 

 700 Ibs. per mule. This was far in excess of any weights hauled 

 by the ponies in the previous season, and here we saw the ad- 

 vantage of having tapered runners t.o our sledges. The beasts, 

 with comparative ease, were able to move these heavy loads on 

 the sledges, where they would have been unable to do so with 

 the broad runners of the previous 1 2-foot sledge. 



