336 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



men parties on the Barrier are not much fun. Day had 

 certainly done his best about the motors and they had 

 helped us over a bad bit of initial surface. That night 

 Scott wrote : " Only a few more marches to feel safe in 

 getting to our goal." x At the lunch halt on November 26, 

 in lat. 8 i° 3 5', we left our Middle Barrier Depot, containing 

 one week's provisions for each returning unit as at Mount 

 Hooper, a reduction of 200 lbs. in our weights. The march 

 that day was very trying. " It is always rather dismal work 

 walking over the great snow plain when sky and surface 

 merge in one pall of dead whiteness, but it is cheering to 

 be in such good company with everything going on steadily 

 and well." 2 



There was no doubt that the animals were tiring, and 

 "a tired animal makes a tired man, I find." 3 The next 

 day (November 28) was no better : " the most dismal start 

 imaginable. Thick as a hedge, snow falling and drifting 

 with keen southerly wind." 4 



Bowers notes : " We have now run down a whole 

 degree of latitude without a fine day, or anything but 

 clouds, mist, and driving snow from the south." We 

 certainly did have some difficult marches, one of the worst 

 effects of which was that we knew we must be making a 

 winding course and we had to pick up our depots on the 

 return somehow. Here is a typical bad morning from 

 Bowers' diary: 



"The first four miles of the march were utter misery 

 for me, as Victor, either through lassitude or because he 

 did not like having to plug into the wind, went as slow as 

 a funeral horse. The light was so bad that wearing goggles 

 was most necessary, and the driving snow filled them up 

 as fast as you cleared them. I dropped a long way astern 

 of the cavalcade, could hardly see them at times through 

 the snow, but the fear that Victor, of all the beasts, should 

 give out was like a nightmare. I have always been used to 

 starting later than the others by a quarter of a mile, and 

 catching them up. At the four-mile cairn I was about fed 



1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 474. 2 Ibid. p. 475. 



3 Ibid. p. 476. * Ibid. p. 476. 



