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THE DEPOT JOURNEY 113 
morning, feeling as though you had only just gone to sleep, 
with the mental strain perhaps which work among cre- 
vasses entails, it is most pleasant to be put to bed for two 
or three days. You may sleep dreamlessly nearly all the 
time, rousing out for meals, or waking occasionally to hear 
from the soft warmth of your reindeer bag the deep boom 
of the tent flapping in the wind, or drowsily you may visit 
other parts of the world, while the drifting snow purrs 
against the green tent at your head. 
But outside there is raging chaos. It is blowing a full 
gale: the air is full of falling snow, and the wind drives this 
along and adds to it the loose snow which is lying on the 
surface of the Barrier. Fight your way a few steps away 
from the tent, and it will be gone. Lose your sense of 
direction and there is nothing to guide you back. Expose 
your face and hands to the wind, and they will very soon be 
frost-bitten. And this at midsummer. Imagine the added 
cold of spring and autumn: the cold and darkness of 
winter. 
The animals suffer most, and during this first blizzard 
all our ponies were weakened, and two of them became 
practically useless. It must be remembered that they had 
stood for five weeks upon a heaving deck; they had been 
through one very bad gale: the time during which we were 
unloading the ship was limited, and since that time they had 
dragged heavyloads the greater partof 200 miles. Nothing 
was left undone for them which we could manage, but 
necessarily the Antarctic is a grim place for ponies. I think 
Scott felt the sufferings of the ponies more than the animals 
themselves. It was different for the dogs. These fairly 
warm blizzards were only a rest for them. Snugly curled 
up in a hole in the snow they allowed themselves to be 
drifted over. Bieleglas and Vaida, two half brothers who 
pulled side by side, always insisted upon sharing one hole. 
and for greater warmth one would lie on the top of the 
other. At intervals of two hours or so they fraternally 
changed places. 
This blizzard lasted three days. 
We now marched nearly due south, the open Barrier in 
I 
