THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



west of the one they took when ascending. The rock 

 was rubbly and kept slipping under their feet, so that 

 falls were frequent. After descending a few hundred 

 feet they found that the rubbly spur of rock down 

 which they were floundering ended abruptly in a long 

 and steep neve slope. Three courses were now open 

 to them: they could retrace their steps to the point 

 above them where the rocky spur had deviated from 

 the main arete; cut steps across the neve slope; or 

 glissade down some five or six hundred feet to a rocky 

 ledge below. In their tired state preference was given 

 to the path of least resistance, which was offered by the 

 glissade, and they therefore rearranged their loads so 

 that they would roll down easily. They were now 

 very thirsty, but they found that if they gathered 

 a little snow, squeezed it into a ball and placed it on 

 the surface of a piece of rock, it melted at once almost 

 on account of the heat of the sun and thus they obtained 

 a makeshift drink. They launched their loads down 

 the slope and watched them as they bumped and 

 bounded over the wavy ridges of neve. Brockle- 

 hurst's load, which contained the cooking-utensils, 

 made the noisiest descent, and the aluminium cookers 

 were much battered when they finally fetched up 

 against the rocks below. Then the members of the 

 party, grasping their ice-axes firmly, followed their 

 gear. As they gathered speed on the downward course 

 and the chisel-edge of the ice-axe bit deeper into the 

 hard neve, their necks and faces were sprayed with a 

 shower of ice. All reached the bottom of the slope 

 safely, and they repeated this glissade down each 

 succeeding snow slope towards the foot of the main 

 cone. Here and there they bumped heavily on hard 

 sastrugi and both clothes and equipment suffered 

 in the rapid descent; unfortunately, also, one of the 



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