AN ADVENTUROUS PENGUIN 



fifty miles away, and it had at least another fifty miles 

 to do before it could reach food and water. The surface 

 in the afternoon became appallingly soft, the ponies 

 sinking in up to their hocks, but there was hard snow 

 underneath. At 6 p.m. we camped, with a march for 

 the day of 15 miles 1550 yards statute. The sun 

 came out in the afternoon, so we turned our sleeping- 

 bags inside out and dried them. To-day's temperature 

 ranged from plus 3° Fahr. in the morning to plus 12° 

 Fahr. at noon. At 8 p.m. it was plus 5° Fain*. There is 

 now a light north wind, and I expect Erebus will be clear 

 soon; bearings and angles put us sixty miles from our 

 depot, where lies 167 lb. of pony food. 



November 11. — It was 8.40 before we got under way 

 this morning, for during the night the temperature 

 dropped well below zero, and it was minus 12° when 

 we got up and found our finnesko and all our gear 

 frozen hard, just like spring sledging times. We had 

 to unpack the sledges and scrape the runners, for the 

 sun had melted the snow on the upper surfaces, and 

 the water had run down and frozen hard during the 

 night on the under sides. The surface was again 

 terribly soft, but there were patches of hard sastrugi 

 beneath, and on one of these Quan must have stepped, 

 for, to our great anxiety, he suddenly went lame about 

 11 a.m. I thought it was just the balling of the snow 

 on his feet, but on scraping this off he still was lame. 

 Fortunately, however, he improved greatly and was 

 practically all right after lunch. During the night, 

 the snow always balls on the ponies' feet, and it is one 

 of our regular jobs to scrape it off, before we harness 

 up in the morning. The snow was not so thick on the 

 surface in the afternoon, only about 5 in., and we got 

 on fairly well. The Bluff is now sixteen miles to the 

 north-west of us, and all the well-known land is clear, 



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