368 WITH SCOTT : THE SILVER LINING 



" On our way back Deb stopped to take some angles with 

 the plane-table, but found that he'd forgotten his sight-rule, 

 so that even that weight was uselessly lugged forward. We 

 camped for lunch at our night camp, and then the sun was so 

 hot that it dried our bags nicely. My feet were very cold 

 and wet, and so were Gran's. I took a complete round of 

 angles both vertical and horizontal, and with the necessary 

 sketching this occupied about two hours. 



" Then about four we pulled off for Camp Blizzard and 

 had a diabolical time over the two and a quarter miles of soft 

 snow. The old track was nearly all rilled up by a drift from 

 the west, and, though the snow had compacted a little, it was 

 frightfully heavy work. The marks of the bamboos on the 

 sledge floor showed that the whole sledge was resting on the 

 snow. Only off the point of the Tongue did a little of 

 the old track show and helped us somewhat. My sledge belt 

 began to feel as if it was being pulled out through my back, 

 and I had to pull with my hands. We camped about 8 p.m. 

 just near our old Blizzard Camp, where we had to sweep off a 

 foot of soft snow. I went up the Glacier Tongue to get ice, 

 but could not reach real ice and had to go over to a cornice 

 to get air-filled ice. We had an excellent hoosh, four cups of 

 * Forde's concentrated ' with water added. It made a sort 

 of liver jelly when boiled a little more, and I had two cups 

 and a glorious cup of cocoa, cooled so that you could get 

 a good long drink ! 



"... And then I gave the diary a miss, hung socks 

 and wet breeches outside the tent, and slept right through 

 till 8 a.m. ! " 



We pushed off" for our headquarters next morning and 

 found we could hardly move the sledge. After struggling a 

 few hundred yards I decided to see how the runners looked. 

 We unpacked everything, and found an irregular lamina of 

 ice about a quarter of an inch thick had coated the runners. 

 This we scraped off with a tin matchbox and then turned the 

 sledge to face the sun, and in about half an hour they were 

 clean and dry. The improvement was most marked, and 

 made our light sledge now only as difficult as the two heavy 

 sledges we had dragged to headquarters ! We read in Arctic 

 books that ice is purposely moulded on the sledges, but I 

 expect the temperatures are lower, when that method is useful. 



