166 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
fur mitts until they are again warm enough to continue. 
Pencil and sketch book, a Winsor and Newton, were car- 
ried in a little blubber-stained wallet on his belt. Scott 
carried his sledge diaries in similar books in a similar wallet 
made of green Willesden canvas and fastened with a lan- 
yard. 
There was a good fug in the hut by dinner time: this 
was a mixed blessing. It was good for our gear: sleeping- 
bags, finnesko, mitts, socks were all hung up and dried, 
most necessary after sledging, and most important for the 
preservation of the skins ; but it also started the most in- 
fernal drip-drip from the roof. I have spoken of the double 
roof of the old Discovery hut. This was still full of solid 
ice; indeed some time afterwards a large portion of it fell, 
but luckily the inhabitants were outside. The immediate 
problem was to prevent the leaks falling on ourselves, our 
food or our clothing and bags. And so every tin was 
brought into use and hung from leaky spots, while water 
chutes came into their own. As the stove cooled so did the 
drip cease, and in no prehistoric cavern did more stalac- 
tites and stalagmites grow apace. 
On March 16 the last sledge party to the Barrier that 
season started for Corner Camp with provisions to increase 
the existing depot there. The party was in charge of Lieu- 
tenant Evans, and consisted of Bowers, Oates, Atkinson, 
Wright, and myself, with two seamen, Crean and Forde. 
The journey out and back took eight days and was un- 
eventful as sledge journeys go. Thick weather prevailed 
for several days, and after running down our distance to 
Corner Camp we waited for it to clear. We found our- 
selves six miles from the depot and among crevasses, which 
goes to show how easy it is to steer off the course under 
such conditions, and how creditable the navigation is when 
a course is kept correctly, sometimes more by instinct than 
by skill. 
But we got our first experience of cold weather sledging 
which was useful. The minus thirties and forties are not 
very cold as we were to understand cold afterwards, but 
quite cold enough to start with ; cold enough to teach you 
