360 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



3600 feet above sea level and past the Cloudmaker, which 

 means that we are half way up the Glacier." x We had 

 done 12^ miles (statute). 



The Beardmore Glacier is twice as large as the Mala- 

 spina in Alaska, which was the largest known glacier until 

 Shackleton discovered the Beardmore. Those who knew 

 the Ferrar Glacier professed to find the Beardmore un- 

 attractive, but to me at any rate it was grand. Its very 

 vastness, however, tends to dwarf its surroundings, and 

 great tributary glaciers and tumbled ice-falls, which any- 

 where else would have aroused admiration, were almost 

 unnoticed in a stream which stretched in places forty 

 miles from bank to bank. It was only when the theodolite 

 was levelled that we realized how vast were the mountains 

 which surrounded us : one of which we reckoned to be 

 well over twenty thousand feet in height, and many of the 

 others must have approached that measurement. Lieu- 

 tenant Evans and Bowers were surveying whenever the 

 opportunity offered, whilst Wilson sat on the sledge or 

 on his sleeping-bag, and sketched. 



Before leaving on the morning of December 18 we 

 bagged off three half-weekly units and made a depot 

 marked by a red flag on a bamboo which was stuck into a 

 small mound. Unfortunately it began to snow in the night 

 and no bearings were taken until the following morning 

 when only the base of the mountains on the west side was 

 visible. We knew we might have difficulty in picking up 

 this depot again, and certainly we all did. 



" It was thick, with low stratus clouds in the morn- 

 ing, and snow was falling in large crystals. Our socks 

 and finnesko, hung out to dry, were covered with most 

 beautiful feathery crystals. In the warm weather one gets 

 fairly saturated with perspiration on the march, and foot- 

 gear is always wet, except the outside covering which is as 

 a rule more or less frozen according to existing tempera- 

 ture. On camping at night I shift to night foot-gear as 

 soon as ever the tent is pitched, and generally slip on my 

 windproof blouse, as one cools down like smoke after the 



1 Bowers. 



