THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



take the soft places with a rush; but all get through 

 the day's work and feed up at night, though Quan 

 evinces disgust at not having more Maujee ration and 

 flings his maize out of his nose-bag. One wonders each 

 night what trouble they will get into. This morning 

 on turning out, we found Grisi lying down unable to 

 get up. He had got to the end of his tether, and could 

 not draw back his leg. He was shivering with cold, 

 though the temperature was only minus 5°. To-day 

 we had a plus temperature, for the first time since 

 leaving — plus 9° Fahr. at noon, and plus 5° Fahr. at 

 6 p.m. The pall of cloud no doubt acts as a blanket, 

 and so we were warm, too warm in fact for marching. 



November 18. — Started at 8 a.m. in clearer weather, 

 and the sun remained visible all day, though during 

 the morning it was snowing from the south, and made 

 the steering very difficult. The surface has been simply 

 awful. We seem to have arrived at a latitude where 

 there is no wind and the snow remains where it falls, 

 for we were sinking in well over our ankles, and the poor 

 ponies are having a most trying time. They break 

 through the crust on the surface and flounder up to their 

 hocks, and at each step they have to pull their feet out 

 through the brittle crust. It is telling more on China- 

 man than on the others, and he is going slowly. The 

 chafing of the snow crust on his fetlocks has galled 

 them, so we will have to shoot him at the next depot 

 in about three days' time. The ponies are curious 

 animals. We give them full meals, and yet they prefer 

 to gnaw at any odd bits of rope. Quan got my jacket 

 in his teeth this morning as I was scraping the snow off 

 his hind feet, and I had to get out last night to stop 

 Socks biting and swallowing lumps out of Quan's tail. 

 If we had thought that they would have been up to 

 these games, we would have had a longer wire to tether 



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