THE POLAR JOURNEY 345 



etc. ; water drips from the tent poles and door, lies on the 

 floor-cloth, soaks the sleeping-bags, and makes everything 

 pretty wretched. If a cold snap follows before we have 

 had time to dry our things, we shall be mighty uncom- 

 fortable. Yet after all it would be humorous enough if it 

 were not for the seriousness of delay — we can't afford that, 

 and it's real hard luck that it should come at such a time. 

 The wind shows signs of easing down, but the temperature 

 does not fall and the snow is as wet as ever, not promising 

 signs of abatement. 



" Wednesday, December 6. Camp 30. Noon. Miser- 

 able, utterly miserable. We have camped in the ' Slough 

 of Despond.' The tempest rages with unabated violence. 

 The temperature has gone to +33°; everything in the 

 tent is soaking. People returning from the outside look 

 exactly as though they had been in a heavy shower of rain. 

 They drip pools on the floor-cloth. The snow is steadily 

 climbing higher about walls, ponies, tents and sledges. 

 The ponies look utterly desolate. Oh ! But this is too 

 crushing, and we are only 12 miles from the glacier. A 

 hopeless feeling descends on one and is hard to fight off. 

 What immense patience is needed for such occasions! Ml 



Bowers describes the situation as follows : 



" It is blowing a blizzard such as one might expect to 

 be driven at us by all the powers of darkness. It may be 

 interesting to describe it, as it is my first experience of a 

 really warm blizzard, and I hope to be troubled by cold 

 ones only, or at least moderate ones only, in future as 

 regards temperature. 



"When I swung the thermometer this morning I 

 looked and looked again, but unmistakably the tempera- 

 ture was +33 F., above freezing point (out of the sun's 

 direct rays) for the first time since we came down here. 

 What this means to us nobody can conceive. We try to 

 treat it as a huge joke, but our wretched condition might 

 be amusing to read of it later. We are wet through, our 

 tents are wet, our bags which are our life to us and the 

 objects of our greatest care, are wet ; the poor ponies are 



1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. pp. 486-489. 



