506 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



edges. We camped here and examined the tracks and dis- 

 cussed things. The surface was fairly good in the forenoon, 

 - 2 3 temperature, and all the afternoon we were coming 

 downhill with again a rise to the W., and a fall and a scoop 

 to the east where the Norwegians came up, evidently by 

 another glacier." 



"January 17. We camped on the Pole itself at 6.30 

 p.m. this evening. In the morning we were up at 5 a.m. 

 and got away on Amundsen's tracks going S.S.W. for 

 three hours, passing two small snow cairns, and then, find- 

 ing the tracks too much snowed up to follow, we made our 

 own bee-line for the Pole : camped for lunch at 12.30 and 

 off again from 3 to 6.30 p.m. It blew from force 4 to 6 all 

 day in our teeth with temperature - 2 2°, the coldest march 

 I ever remember. It was difficult to keep one's hands from 

 freezing in double woollen and fur mitts. Oates, Evans, 

 and Bowers all have pretty severe frost-bitten noses and 

 cheeks, and we had to camp early for lunch on account of 

 Evans' hands. It was a very bitter day. Sun was out now 

 and again, and observations taken at lunch, and before and 

 after supper, and at night, at 7 p.m. and at 2 a.m. by our 

 time. The weather was not clear, the air was full of crystals 

 driving towards us as we came south, and making the 

 horizon grey and thick and hazy. We could see no sign of 

 cairn or flag, and from Amundsen's direction of tracks this 

 morning he has probably hit a point about 3 miles off. 

 W'e hope for clear weather to-morrow, but in any case are 

 all agreed that he can claim prior right to the Pole itself. 

 He has beaten us in so far as he made a race of it. We 

 have done what we came for all the same and as our pro- 

 gramme was made out. From his tracks we think there 

 were only 2 men, on ski, with plenty of dogs on rather low 

 diet. They seem to have had an oval tent. W T e sleep one 

 night at the Pole and have had a double hoosh with some 

 last bits of chocolate, and X's cigarettes have been much 

 appreciated by Scott and Oates and Evans. A tiring day : 

 now turning into a somewhat starchy frozen bag. To- 

 morrow we start for home and shall do our utmost to get 

 back in time to send the news to the ship." 



