114. WORST JOURNEY IN "THE WORK 
front, Mount Terror and the sea behind, for five days, 
covering fifty-four miles, when, being now level with the 
southern extremity of the Bluff, we laid the Bluff Depét. 
The bearings of Bluff Depét, as well as those of Corner 
Camp, are given in Scott’s Last Expedition. 
The characteristics of these days were the collapse of 
two of the ponies, Bliicher and Blossom, and the partial © 
collapse of a third, Jimmy Pigg, although the surface har- _ 
dened, becoming a marbled series of wind-swept ridges 
and domes in this region. For the rest the new hands were 
finding out how to keep warm on the Barrier, how to pitch 
a tent and cook a meal in twenty minutes, and the thousand © 
and one little tips which only experience can teach. But 
all the care in the world could do little for the poor ponies. 
It must be confessed at once that some of these ponies 
were very poor material, and it must be conceded that | 
Oates who was in charge of them started with a very great _ 
handicap. From first to last it was Oates’ consummate man- 
agement, seconded by the care and kindness of the ponies’ 
leaders, which obtained results which often exceeded the 
most sanguine hopes. 
One evening we watched Scott digging crumbly blocks 
of snow out of the Barrier and building a rough wall, 
something like a grouse butt, to the south of his pony. 
In our inmost hearts I fear we viewed these proceedings 
with distrust, and saw in it but little usefulness,—one little 
bit of leaky wall in a great plain of snow. But a very little 
wind (which you must understand comes almost invariably 
from the south) convinced us from personal experience 
what a boon these walls could be. Henceforward every 
night on camping each pony leader built a wall behind his 
pony while his pemmican was cooking, and came out after 
supper to finish this wall before he turned in tohissleeping- 
bag—no small thing when you consider that the warmth 
of your hours of rest depends largely upon getting into 
your bag immediately you have eaten your hoosh and cocoa. 
And not seldom you might hear a voice in your dreams: 
“Bill! Nobby’s kicked his wall down’’; and out Bill 
would go to build it up again. 
