THE DEPOT JOURNEY LEG 
Tue Return OF THE Pony Party FRoM One Ton 
Depdét 
(From a Letter written by Bowers) 
As our loads were so light Titus thought it would be 
better for the ponies to do their full march in one stretch 
and so have a longer rest. We, therefore, decided to forgo 
lunch and havea good meal on camping. The recent trails 
were fresh enough to follow and so saved us steering by 
compass, which 1s very difficult as the needle will only come 
to rest after you have been standing still for about a minute. 
That march was extraordinary, the snowy mist hid all 
distant objects and made all close ones look gigantic. 
Although we were walking on a flat undulating plain, one 
could not get away from the impression that the ground 
was hilly—dquite steep in places with deep hollows by the 
wayside. Suddenly a herd of apparent cattle would appear 
in the distance, then you would think, ‘ No, it’s a team of 
dogs broken loose and rushing towards you.’ In another 
moment one would be walking over the black dots of some 
old horse droppings which had been the cause of the hallu- 
cinations. Since then | have often been completely taken 
in by appearances under certain conditions of light, and the 
novelty has worn off. Sastrugi are the hard waves formed 
by wind on a snow surface ; these are seldom more than 
a foot or so in height, and often so obscured as to be 
imperceptible irregularities. On this occasion they often 
appeared like immense ridges until you walked over them. 
After going about 10 miles we spotted a tiny black triangle 
in the dead white void ahead, it was over a mile away and 
was the lunch camp of the dogs. We were fairly close 
before they broke camp and hurriedly packed up. I 
thought they looked rather sheepish at having been caught 
up, like the hare and the tortoise again. Still we had been 
marching very quickly and Scott was delighted to see 
Weary Willie going so well. They then dashed off, and 
after completing just over 12 miles we reached Pagoda 
Cairn where a bale of fodder had been left. 
Here we camped and threw up our walls as quickly as 
