THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



stalls in order to take down the partition, and so give 

 the poor animal room to get up itself. We had perforce 

 to leave it for the night, trusting that when daylight 

 came the weather might have moderated, and that with 

 the light we might be able to do more. It speaks wonders 

 for the vitality of the animal that in spite of its cramped 

 position and the constant washing of the cold seas over 

 it during the whole night, it greedily ate the handfuls 

 of hay which were given it from time to time. Every 

 now and then the pony made frantic efforts to get on to 

 its feet again, but without avail, and before the morning 

 its struggles gradually grew weaker and weaker. The 

 morning of January 6 broke with the gale blowing more 

 strongly than ever. There was a mountainous sea run- 

 ning, and at ten o'clock, after having made another futile 

 attempt to get " Doctor," as he was called, on his legs, 

 and finding that he had no strength of his own, I had 

 regretfully to give orders to have him shot. One bullet 

 from a heavy service revolver ended his troubles. Dur- 

 ing the morning the gale moderated somewhat, and at 

 noon we were in latitude 50° 58' South, and longitude 

 175° 19' East. 



During the afternoon of January 6 the wind in- 

 creased again, the squalls being of hurricane force, and 

 the wind shifting to between west and north-west. The 

 Koonya ahead was making bad weather of it, but was 

 steaming as fast as practicable, for with the wind and 

 sea coming more abeam she was able to make better head- 

 way than when she was plunging into a head sea with 

 the weight and bulk of the towing cable and the Nimrod 

 astern of her, factors in the situation that made the hand- 

 ling and steering of the steamer very difficult. The tem- 

 perature of the air that day was up to 49° Fahr., but 

 the sea temperature had dropped to 44°. This continuous 

 bad weather was attributed by some on board to the 



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