THE WINTER JOURNEY 251 
And now Bill was feeling terribly responsible for bothof 
us. He kept on saying that he was sorry, but he had never 
dreamed it was going to be as bad as this. He felt that 
having asked us to come he was in some way chargeable 
with our troubles. When leaders have this kind of feeling 
about their men they get much better results, if the men 
are good: if men are bad or even moderate they will try 
and take advantage of what they consider to be softness. 
The temperature on the night of July 7 was — 59°. 
On July 8 we found the first sign that we might be 
coming to an end of this soft, powdered, arrowrooty snow. 
It was frightfully hard pulling; but every now and then 
our finnesko pierced a thin crust before they sank right 
in. This meant a little wind, and every now and then our 
feet came down on a hard slippery patch under the soft 
snow. We were surrounded by fog which walked along 
with us, and far above us the moon was shining on its roof. 
Steering was as difficult as the pulling, and four hours of 
the hardest work only produced 14 miles in the morning, 
and three more hours 1 mile in the afternoon—and the 
temperature was — 57° with a breeze—horrible ! 
In the early morning of the next day snow began to fall 
and the fog was dense: when we got up we could see 
nothing at all anywhere. After the usual four hours to get 
going in the morning we settled that it was impossible to 
relay, for we should never be able to track ourselves back 
to the second sledge. It was with very great relief that we 
found we could move both sledges together, and I think 
this was mainly due to the temperature which had risen 
to;.= 36°. 
This was our fourth day of fog in addition to the normal 
darkness, and we knew we must be approaching the land. 
It would be Terror Point, and the fog is probably caused 
by the moist warm air coming up from the sea through 
the pressure cracks and crevasses ; for it is supposed that 
the Barrier here is afloat. 
I wish I could take you on to the great Ice Barrier some 
calm evening when the sun is just dipping in the middle of 
the night and show you the autumn tints on Ross Island. 
