478 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



this to be quite a different wind circulation from Ross Island, 

 which as a whole gets its wind from the Bluff. The Bluff is, 

 I believe, the dividing line, though big general blizzards 

 sweep over the whole, irrespective of local areas of circula- 

 tion. This was amply corroborated by our journey out here 

 last autumn. Well, this is better than then — just round 

 here we had a full blizzard and - 33°. 



November 10. Early morning. A perfect night for 

 marching, but about -20 and chilly for waiting about. 

 The mules are going well, but Lai Khan is thinning down 

 a lot: Abdullah and Khan Sahib are also off their feed. 

 Their original allowance of 1 1 lbs. oats and oilcake has been 

 reduced to 9 lbs., and they are not eating this. The dogs 

 took another 300 lbs. off them to-day, and pulled it very 

 well. The surface has been splendidly hard, which is most 

 surprising. Wright does not think that there has been an 

 abnormal deposition of snow the last winter; he says it is 

 about 1^ feet, which is much the same as last year. The 

 mules are generally not sinking in more than two inches, 

 but in places, especially latterly, they have been in five or 

 six. This is the first we have had this year of crusts, and 

 some of them to-day have been exceptionally big : two at 

 lunch must have lasted several seconds. The dogs seem to 

 think the devil is after them when one of these goes off, and 

 put on a terrific spurt. It is interesting to watch them 

 snuffing in the hoof-marks of the mules, where there is 

 evidently some scent left. In these temperatures they are 

 always kicking their legs about at the halts. As the sun 

 gained power this morning a thick fog came up very sud- 

 denly. I believe this is a sign of good weather. 



November 1 1 . Early morning. One Ton Depot. Wright 

 got a latitude sight yesterday putting us six miles from One 

 Ton, and our sledge-meter shows 5§, and here we are. 

 More frost-bite this morning, and it was pretty cold starting 

 in a fair wind and - 7 temperature. We have continued 

 this really splendid surface, and now the sastrugi are point- 

 ing a little more to the south of S.W. While there are not 

 such big mounds, the surface does not yet show any signs 

 of getting bad. There were the most beautiful cloud-effects 



