324 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



alterations to an undercurrent of our fervid remarks. Then 

 she'd go harder than we could walk for seven minutes. We 

 got hot again, and would then have to wait a quarter of an hour, 

 stamping round and freezing off, till she was affable once more." 



We slept at the 1902 Hut, and Meares and Bowers gave 

 us a grand seal hoosh next morning, cooked on the greatly 

 improved blubber stove. 



" Lashley's motor got under weigh after twenty minutes 

 with the blow lamp on the carburettor, but Day's was mulish. 

 Gran, Evans, and I waited with him." The huge loads 

 dragged were mostly oil and tent gear, but their food-trans- 

 porting power increases as the fuel load is used up. " How- 

 ever, as the day grew the motor took heart of grace and 

 started, doing half-mile bursts, and at 12.45 we foregathered 

 below the Barrier edge. Lashley would have been up an hour 

 earlier, but he ran out of lubricant." Unfortunately being 

 on different gears they couldn't keep together readily. " I 

 walked up on to the Barrier very near where we crossed the 

 big crack on March 12th. There was a beautiful snow ramp 

 up the twelve feet above the sea-ice. 



" At 1 p.m. Day moved on to tackle this. We all pushed 

 behind, though it was not a bit necessary. She went up in 

 great style, though I think most of us had dreaded this test 

 considerably. At 1.5 the first motor stood on the great 

 Barrier. Lashley's then ran up quite easily, and after cheering 

 them we streaked back to the 1902 Hut for lunch. Scott 

 and Wilson ran two miles of the distance ; Bowers and I 

 walked on together until Crean and Evans passed us. I 

 joined them, but gave them best ultimately, for they were 

 both powerful pacemakers." 



We hit off for Cape Evans after lunch at a hot pace and 

 didn't stop for eight miles, when we had tea off Razorback. 

 " All around us were seals and their young. The latter are 

 longer in proportion, and are lighter in colour and woollier. 

 The mothers make a noise l&e a dyspeptic sheep, and one 

 big beggar would nose arouna the sledges until the Owner 

 drove her away. Bill went off to get a dead young one he 

 espied, and found it alive, but frozen fast by its umbilical 

 cord ! He freed it and left it, but Nelson saw the little idiot 

 frozen again two days later." 



On the 28th Wilson examined the three Emperor penguin 



