THE POLAR JOURNEY 357 



terribly long time." x We spent the morning of December 

 15 crossing a maze of crevasses though they were well 

 bridged ; I believe all these lower reaches of the glacier 

 are badly crevassed, but the thick snow and our ski kept 

 us from tumbling in. There was a great deal of competi- 

 tion between the teams which was perhaps unavoidable 

 but probably a pity. This day Bowers' diary records, 

 " Did a splendid bust off on ski, leaving Scott in the 

 lurch, and eventually overhauling the party which had left 

 some time before us. All the morning we kept up a steady, 

 even swing which was quite a pleasure." But the same day 

 Scott wrote, " Evans' is now decidedly the slowest unit, 

 though Bowers' is not much faster. We keep up and over- 

 haul either without difficulty." Bowers' team considered 

 themselves quite good, but both teams were satisfied of 

 their own superiority; as a matter of fact Scott's was the 

 faster, as it should have been for it was certainly the heavier 

 of the two. 



" It was a very bad light all day, but after lunch it 

 began to get worse, and by 5 o'clock it was snowing hard 

 and we could see nothing. We went on for nearly an hour, 

 steering by the wind and any glimpse of sastrugi, and then, 

 very reluctantly, Scott camped. It looks better now. The 

 surface is much harder and more wind-swept, and as a rule 

 the ice is only six inches underneath. We are beginning 

 to talk about Christmas. We get very thirsty these days 

 in the warm temperatures : we shall feel it farther up 

 when the cold gets into our open pores and sunburnt hands 

 and cracked lips. I am plastering some skin on mine to- 

 night. Our routine now is: turn out 5.30, lunch 1, and 

 camp at 7, and we get a short 8 hours' sleep, but we are so 

 dead tired we could sleep half into the next day: we get 

 about 9! hours' march. Tea at lunch a positive godsend. 

 We are raising the land to the south well, and are about 

 2500 feet up, latitude about 84 8' S." 2 



The next day, December 16, Bowers wrote: "We 

 have had a really enjoyable day's march, except the latter 

 end of the afternoon. At the outset in the forenoon my 



1 My own diary. a Ibid. 



