328 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



Chinaman could not go very much farther, and it was also 

 necessary that ponies should be killed in order to feed the 

 dogs. The two dog-teams were carrying about a week's 

 pony food, but they were unable to advance more than a 

 fortnight from One Ton without killing ponies. 



This decision practically meant that Scott abandoned 

 the idea of taking ponies up the glacier. This was a great 

 relief, for the crevassed state of the lower reaches of the 

 glacier as described by Shackleton led us to believe that 

 the attempt was suicidal. All the winter our brains were 

 exercised to try and devise some method by which the 

 ponies could be driven from behind, and by which the 

 connection between pony and sledge could be loosed if the 

 pony fell into a crevasse, but I confess that there seemed 

 little chance of this happening. From all we saw of the 

 glacier I am convinced that there is no reasonable chance 

 of getting ponies up it, and that dogs could only be driven 

 down it if the way up was most carefully surveyed and 

 kept on the return. I am sure that in this kind of uncer- 

 tainty the mental strain on the leader of a party is less 

 than that on his men. The leader knows quite well what 

 he thinks worth while risking or not : in this case Scott 

 probably was always of the opinion that it would not be 

 worth while taking ponies on to the glacier. The pony 

 leaders, however, only knew that the possibility was ahead 

 of them. I can remember now the relief with which we 

 heard that it was not intended that Wilson should take 

 Nobby, the fittest of our ponies, farther than the Gate- 

 way. 



Up to now Christopher had lived up to his reputation, 

 as the following extracts from Bowers' diary will show : 

 "Three times we downed him, and he got up and 

 threw us about, with all four of us hanging on like grim 

 death. He nearly had me under him once ; he seems 

 fearfully strong, but it is a pity he wastes so much good 

 energy. . . . Christopher, as usual, was strapped on 

 three legs and then got down on his knees. He gets more 

 cunning each time, and if he does not succeed in biting or 

 kicking one of us before long it won't be his fault. He 



